Qualla: RAF Defford https://qualla.com/raf-defford en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:15 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/2/raf-defford-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: RAF Defford https://qualla.com/raf-defford RAF Defford: Introduction https://qualla.com/raf-defford/ Photo credit British Government, Public domain. On a flat patch of the River Avon's flood plain, three miles north-west of the village of Defford, there once stood 100 aircraft and 2,500 people working on the most closely guarded secret of the Second World War. The hangars are mostly gone now, but the dish antennas remain - bone-white parabolas pointed at satellites - because the people who turned aircraft into radar laboratories never quite finished what they began here. RAF Defford opened in 1941 as a satellite of nearby RAF Pershore. The next year it became something else entirely: the flying test bed for the radar revolution.

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]]> Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/2/raf-defford-wp/gcq2-raf-defford-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full RAF Defford: A Move Made in Tents https://qualla.com/raf-defford/ Photo credit British Government, Public domain. In May 1942 the Telecommunications Research Establishment - Britain's radar brain trust - left its clifftop laboratories at Worth Matravers on the Dorset coast and moved to Malvern, ten miles north of Defford. The trigger was paranoia, and not unfounded paranoia: the British raid...

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]]> Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/2/raf-defford-wp/gcq2-raf-defford-a-move-made-in-tents.mp3 0:06 2 full RAF Defford: Eyes in the Dark https://qualla.com/raf-defford/ Photo credit British Government, Public domain. What they were perfecting was airborne radar, and what airborne radar did was solve three of the war's worst problems at once. Airborne Interception sets let RAF night fighters find German bombers in the darkness over England; John "Cat's Eyes" Cunningham, whose preternatural nig...

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]]> Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/2/raf-defford-wp/gcq2-raf-defford-eyes-in-the-dark.mp3 0:06 3 full RAF Defford: The Halifax That Did Not Come Back https://qualla.com/raf-defford/ Photo credit British Government, Public domain. On 7 June 1942, four weeks after the unit's arrival at Defford, Handley Page Halifax V9977 took off carrying eleven people - RAF aircrew, civilian scientists, and the H2S radar prototype they were testing. The aircraft caught fire in the air and crashed near Tewkesbury. Everyone ...

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]]> Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/2/raf-defford-wp/gcq2-raf-defford-the-halifax-that-did-not-come-back.mp3 0:06 4 full RAF Defford: The First Autoland https://qualla.com/raf-defford/ Photo credit British Government, Public domain. Among the many "firsts" Defford could claim, one stands out as a small triumph of nerve and craft. In January 1945, in the snowy last winter of the war, a converted Boeing 247 with the registration DZ203 made the world's first fully automatic landing - no pilot input, the aircraf...

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]]> Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/2/raf-defford-wp/gcq2-raf-defford-the-first-autoland.mp3 0:06 5 full RAF Defford: Looking at Satellites Now https://qualla.com/raf-defford/ Photo credit British Government, Public domain. But the flat ground and the line-of-sight horizon were ideal for another job. In 1980 the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment moved its satellite-tracking facility here, taking advantage of the flood-plain flatness and the nearby bulk of Bredon Hill, which made an excellent sat...

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]]> Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/2/raf-defford-wp/gcq2-raf-defford-looking-at-satellites-now.mp3 0:06 6 full