Qualla: RAF Ringway

RAF Ringway: Introduction

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Malindine E G (Lt) Puttnam L (Lt) Spender H (Lt) War Office official photographer., Public domain. Manchester Airport's terminals and runways now cover the place, and the last building from the war years was demolished after 2011 to make room for more car parking. But for a few crucial years in the 1940s, this corner of Cheshire was a hidden engine of the war effort. Every Allied paratrooper trained in Europe, around 60,000 of them, made their first jumps from this airfield. The first Avro Lancaster bomber was built here. Men and women of the Special Operations Executive learned to drop from barrage balloons over the nearby parkland before being sent into occupied France. Today's passengers wheel their cases over the ground where, in July 1940, RAF instructors made the first live jumps that turned Britain into a paratroop nation.

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Image: Malindine E G (Lt) Puttnam L (Lt) Spender H (Lt) War Office official photographer. | Public domain

RAF Ringway: Before the War

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Malindine E G (Lt) Puttnam L (Lt) Spender H (Lt) War Office official photographer., Public domain. Manchester had been looking for a real airport for years. The grass strips at Wythenshawe, opened in April 1929, and at Barton west of Eccles, opened in January 1930, were always going to be temporary. By 1934 it was obvious that the Douglas DC-2 and DC-3 needed more runway than ...

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Image: Malindine E G (Lt) Puttnam L (Lt) Spender H (Lt) War Office official photographer. | Public domain

RAF Ringway: The Parachute School

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit RuthAS, CC BY 3.0. In spring 1939 the RAF began building its own station in the north-east corner of the field: two large hangars, workshops, barracks, and ancillary accommodation, with phased completion through early 1940. From June 1940, Ringway became the wartime home of No. 1 Parachute Training...

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Image: RuthAS | CC BY 3.0

RAF Ringway: Agents and the Roman Candle

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Malindine E G (Lt) Puttnam L (Lt) Spender H (Lt) War Office official photographer., Public domain. Men and women agents of the Special Operations Executive were trained to jump here too. Their holding centre, the comedian Frank Muir later remembered, was an Edwardian house on the airfield's edge, with another in nearby Bowdon. Muir himself served at Ringway in the photographic...

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Image: Malindine E G (Lt) Puttnam L (Lt) Spender H (Lt) War Office official photographer. | Public domain

RAF Ringway: Lancasters in the Hangars

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Malindine E G (Lt) Puttnam L (Lt) Spender H (Lt) War Office official photographer., Public domain. Ringway was a factory as well as a training ground. Over 4,400 warplanes were built here by Fairey Aviation and Avro. The aircraft included the Fairey Battle, Fairey Fulmar, Fairey Barracuda, Bristol Beaufighter, Handley Page Halifax, and Fairey Gannet. Avro's experimental depart...

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Image: Malindine E G (Lt) Puttnam L (Lt) Spender H (Lt) War Office official photographer. | Public domain

RAF Ringway: After the Whistle

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ringwayobserver, CC BY-SA 3.0. When the war ended, No. 14 Ferry Pilots Pool of the Air Transport Auxiliary stood down. The veterans of the ATA, who had delivered thousands of military aircraft into and out of Ringway, Woodford, Barton, and the other north-west factories, dispersed. No. 613 (City of Manchester)...

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Image: Ringwayobserver | CC BY-SA 3.0