RAF Syerston

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RAF Syerston
IATA: none – ICAO: EGXY
Summary
Airport type		Military
Operator		Royal Air Force
Location		Newark-on-Trent
Elevation AMSL		228 ft / 69 m
Coordinates		53°01′22″N 000°54′40″W / 53.02278, -0.91111
Runways
Direction	Length		Surface
Direction	ft	m	Surface
06/24	5,994	1,827	Asphalt
15/33	4,419	1,347	Asphalt
02/20			Grass
11/29			Asphalt

RAF Syerston (IATA: N/A, ICAO: EGXY) is a Royal Air Force station near Newark, Nottinghamshire. It was used as a bomber base during World War II.

Syerston was built as part of the bomber expansion in the late thirties, but did not open until December 1940. The first aircraft were Vickers Wellingtons crewed by Polish flyers. In July 1941 they were replaced by members of the Royal Canadian Air Force flying Handley-Page Hampdens. In 1942 several squadrons of Avro Lancaster aircraft arrived. In 1943 Bill Reid won a Victoria Cross on a mission flown from Syerston.

In November 1943 the operational squadrons departed, and the station was used for bomber crew training. From November to July 1944 there was also a Bombing and Gunnery Defence Training Flight in attendance with several Wellingtons, Spitfires, Hurricanes, plus a few Martinet tug aircraft, all employed in brushing up the skills of air gunners on air to air exercises. Syerston was taken over by Flying Training Command on the 1 February 1948. The flying training school was disbanded in 1970, and the station lay vacant.

On 20 September 1958, an Avro Vulcan VX770 crashed during a fly past at RAF Syerston Battle of Britain "At Home" display.

"At Home" part programme cover

A Rolls Royce test pilot was authorized to fly VX770 on an engine performance sortie with a fly past at the Battle of Britain display. The briefing was for the pilot to fly over the airfield twice at 200-300 feet, flying at a speed of 250-300 knots. The Vulcan flew along the main 25/07 runway (Now 24/07 due to magnetic shift) then started a roll to starboard and climbed slightly. Very shortly a kink appeared in the starboard mainplane leading edge followed by a stripping of the leading edge of the wing. The starboard wingtip then broke followed by a collapse of the main spar and wing structure. Subsequently, the Vulcan went into a dive and began rolling with the starboard wing on fire and struck the ground at the taxiway of the end of runway 07. Three occupants of a controllers' caravan were killed by debris, a fourth being injured. All the crew of the Vulcan were killed. The cause of the crash was pilot error; the captain flew the aircraft over the airfield at 410-420 knots instead of the briefed 250-300 knots he had also descended to a height of 65-70ft. Rolling the Vulcan to starboard while flying at this speed, the aircraft was rolled at a rate of 15-20 degrees/second while pulling up into a 3,000ft a minute climb imposing a strain of between 2-3g where it should have remained below 1.25g. The VX770 was a prototype and was not as strong as later production models, indeed buckling of the leading edge in this plane was a known problem and was the primary reason for low flight performance limits being imposed. ^[1]

In 1975 the Air Cadet Central Gliding School and 644 Volunteer Gliding Squadron moved to Syerston, and have been there since, later joined by 643 VGS. 643 VGS have been at RAF Syerston since 10 Oct 1992. This has been their longest home yet, but it was only meant to be a short term stay.