Qualla: RAF Coningsby

RAF Coningsby: Introduction

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alan Murray-Rust, CC BY-SA 2.0. Two aircraft sit side by side on the apron at Coningsby. One is a Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, twenty-first-century stealth-adjacent, four hardpoints under each wing, capable of intercepting a Russian Tu-95 at thirty thousand feet. The other is an Avro Lancaster, PA474, built in 1945, one of only two Lancasters left in the world that can still fly. They share the same runway. They sometimes share the same flypast. Coningsby is the RAF's southern Quick Reaction Alert station, the front-line interceptor base that scrambles to meet unidentified aircraft approaching UK airspace twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year — and it is also the home of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, whose Spitfires, Hurricanes, and that single Lancaster keep the air war of 1940 to 1945 visibly, audibly present over modern English skies.

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Image: Alan Murray-Rust | CC BY-SA 2.0

RAF Coningsby: Typhoons on alert

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dalton mw5, CC BY-SA 4.0. RAF Coningsby is a Main Operating Base. Three front-line Typhoon squadrons live here — No. 3 Squadron, No. 11 Squadron, and No. 12 Squadron, the last a joint RAF/Qatar Emiri Air Force unit that emerged from the Qatari purchase of twenty-four Typhoons from the UK in 2018. No. 29 S...

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Image: Dalton mw5 | CC BY-SA 4.0

RAF Coningsby: Flight Context

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit USAF, Public domain. RAF Coningsby (ICAO: EGXC) sits at 53.093°N, 0.166°W, in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire — 13.7 km southwest of Horncastle and 15.8 km northwest of Boston. Runway 08/26, 2,742 metres. Quick Reaction Alert is active 24/7; Typhoons may launch at high speed with little notice. Tattershall Castle, a striking red-brick fifteenth-century keep about 1 km northwest of the airfield, is an unmissable visual landmark — and a key motif on the station badge. Battle of Britain Memorial Flight flying is unpredictable but visible from public roads adjacent to the airfield perimeter. Avoid overflight.

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Image: USAF | Public domain

RAF Coningsby: Coningsby's previous wars

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Richard Hoare, CC BY-SA 2.0. The station opened on 4 November 1940 under No. 5 Group of RAF Bomber Command. The first squadron, No. 106 with Handley Page Hampden medium bombers, arrived in February 1941 and bombed Cologne the following month. Lancaster squadrons followed through the war — Nos. 61, 83, and 97...

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Image: Richard Hoare | CC BY-SA 2.0

RAF Coningsby: What sits at the gate

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mark Holland, CC BY-SA 2.0. The station badge depicts Tattershall Castle, a fifteenth-century brick keep that stands a kilometre northwest of the airfield — one of the great surviving medieval brick buildings in England. The motto is Loyalty binds me. Inside the No. 3 Squadron hardened-shelter complex sits ...

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Image: Mark Holland | CC BY-SA 2.0