Ice Station Kilo – the home of the Nimrod force 

WHILE the RAF presence north of the border has been scaled back over the years, the flag is still proudly flown at Lossiemouth, one of two Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) stations at the frontline of Britain’s air defences.

But just 15 miles west along the Moray coast lies Kinloss, a former RAF station that was created around the same time as Lossiemouth, and still serves the military to this day as Kinloss Barracks. 

Both stations resulted from the RAF expansion programme of the 1930s, two sites selected in an area just south of the Moray Firth, Kinloss located around 30 miles north east of Inverness. It was surveyed for its suitability to become a training school, work beginning in 1938 after around 375 acres of agricultural land were compulsory purchased. 

By August 1938, three C-type hangars and wooden hut accommodation had been constructed, with grass runways prepared, but it would be April 1939 when the station officially opened, No. 14 Flying Training School (FTS) established on site, comprising of personnel who had transferred from No. 8 FTS based at Montrose. 

As well as training, Whitleys from detachments of Nos. 10, 51, 77 and 102 Squadrons were hosted while operating against German U-boats in the north Atlantic late in 1939, with Spitfires of No. 609 Squadron also flying from the location while defending the Home Fleet moored at Loch Ewe in the North West Highlands. 

Following the German invasion of Norway, operational activity increased at Kinloss to such an extent that No. 14 FTS departing for Cranfield in Bedfordshire in April 1940 to make space for new squadrons and aircraft arriving, No. 45 Maintenance Unit (MU) formed soon after No. 14 FTS’s departure, the station becoming an aircraft storage and maintenance centre – specialising in bombers such as Whitleys and Wellingtons. 

A month after No. 45 MU made Kinloss their home, No. 19 Operational Training Unit (OTU) was formed; pilots, navigators bomb-aimers and gunners arriving from across Britain before undergoing a 3-4 month training programme. The nature and danger of the work carried out at the site meant aircraft losses were numerous, with many Whitleys believed still to be at the bottom of the Moray Firth.

The increase in activity saw a satellite constructed at Balnageith nearby, which became RAF Forres, – ‘D’ Flight of No. 19 OTU moving in in April 1941, followed by ‘C’ Flight in May 1941 – but the need to accommodate No. 45 MU’s aircraft saw two satellite landing grounds established at Dornoch and Kirkton, north of the Moray Firth.   

It was the summer of 1942 that concrete runways were laid, around 350 aircraft stored at the site by the end of 1943, and when No. 19 OTU disbanded in July 1945, Coastal Command took over control of Kinloss, Lancaster bombers adapted for anti-submarine and search and rescue duties. 

Avro Shackletons replaced the Lancasters, and by the early 1950s, aircraft from Kinloss were locating and shadowing Soviet naval units, with 1951 seeing No. 217 Squadron reformed on site, flying US Lockheed Neptune MR1s out of the station. 

The early 1970s saw the Nimrod arrive at Kinloss to replace the Shackletons, operating on maritime reconnaissance, search and rescue, anti-submarine, and anti-shipping duties; the release of the movie Ice Station Zebra around that time, about the rescue of the crew of a remote weather station near the North Pole, saw Kinloss and Lossiemouth earn the nicknames Ice Station Kilo and Ice Station Lima due to their perceived ‘remoteness’.

Nimrod squadrons on site at Kinloss were Nos. 120, 201 and 206, their work both civilian and military, providing air support following oil rig disasters in the North Sea, as well as playing a key role in the ‘Cod Wars’ with Iceland when they flew surveillance sorties over disputed fishing areas in the mid-1970s. During the Falklands War in 1982, Nimrods were deployed from Kinloss to Ascension Islands, adapted for air-to-air refuelling before carrying out prolonged operations in support of the Task Force heading to the South Atlantic. 

One of the most tragic events at the station occurred on November 17, 1980, just after 7.30am. A Nimrod MR2, XV256, had just departed the runway in semi-darkness when it flew through a flock of seabirds at 20ft, suffering what was described as ‘multiple bird-strikes’.

One engine suffered a catastrophic failure, two more were damaged, leaving one to power the aircraft and its 20-man crew. The loss of thrust proved too great to remain airborne, and just 27 seconds after take-off, XV256 crash-landed in a forest around 1300 yards from the end of the runway, and was quickly engulfed in flames. Somewhat miraculously, 18 of the crew escaped, but the pilot and co-pilot were killed – Flt Lt Noel Anthony, on exchange duties from the Royal Australian Air Force, and Flying Officer Steve Belcher.  

The strong association of Kinloss with the Nimrod would ultimately prove to be its Achilles heel in RAF terms when a defence review was initiated in October 2010, a decision made to cancel the upgrade to Nimrod MRA4s, leading to the closure of RAF Kinloss in 2012, the site handed over to the Army.

Despite the transfer, Kinloss remained home to the UK Aeronautical Rescue Coordination Centre (ARCC) which arrived at the Moray site in 1997, its role to control and maintain all military and civilian UK search and rescue assets; March 2016 seeing ARCC finally move to Fareham in Hampshire. The RAF Kinloss Mountain Rescue Team (MRT), established in 1944, was also retained at the station after the Army transfer despite changing its name to RAF Lossiemouth MRT, eventually making the short move up the Moray coast in February 2015.     

Its proximity to Lossiemouth saw the runways remain fully functional as a relief landing site, and in 2020 flying returned to the location with the first of the RAF’s Poseidon fleet arriving from the US while resurfacing work was carried out at Lossiemouth; routine Typhoon operations were also carried out from the runway at Kinloss for a short time before returning to their home station in October 2020.

However, the reprieve for flying at Kinloss would be only temporary, with March 2021 seeing the runway permanently deactivated, the Moray Flying Club relocating to Lossiemouth.