Qualla: RAF Shawbury

RAF Shawbury: Introduction

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geoff Pick, CC BY-SA 2.0. If you are a British military helicopter pilot - Royal Navy, Army Air Corps, or Royal Air Force - you learned how to hover, transition, and autorotate over the green fields of north Shropshire, because that is the only place the British military teaches anyone how to fly a helicopter. RAF Shawbury, six miles north-east of Shrewsbury, runs the entire rotary-wing pipeline for all three services and trains for a handful of foreign air forces besides. Twenty-nine Airbus Juno light helicopters and three larger Jupiter aircraft sit on the apron, working through 286 students a year under 161 instructors. The station's history runs back more than a century: it opened in 1917 as a Royal Flying Corps training field, closed in 1920 when the postwar RAF was slashed to the bone, and reopened in 1938 in time to train pilots for the war that everyone could see coming.

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Image: Geoff Pick | CC BY-SA 2.0

RAF Shawbury: Two Decades Underfarmland

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Statsfan, CC BY-SA 3.0. The first hangars went up in 1917. Number 29 Training Wing formed on 1 September that year with three training squadrons attached - Number 10 Squadron, an Australian Number 29 Training Squadron, and Number 67 - all of them struggling with the chaos of running mixed aircraft fleet...

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Image: Statsfan | CC BY-SA 3.0

RAF Shawbury: Back in Time for the War

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Photo taken by Alan Ford 2006-06-07., Public domain. In February 1938, with Hitler having occupied the Rhineland and the Sudeten crisis approaching, the Air Ministry reactivated Shawbury as a training establishment. Number 11 Service Flying Training School moved in. Number 27 Maintenance Unit set up an Aircraft Storage Unit alongsi...

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Image: Photo taken by Alan Ford 2006-06-07. | Public domain

RAF Shawbury: The Helicopter Era

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Novacool88 (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. After the war, the runways stayed busy. The School of Air Traffic Control arrived in 1950, combining with the existing navigation school to create the Central Navigation and Control School. Number 27 Maintenance Unit continued storing and scrapping aircraft until July 1972. Then,...

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Image: Novacool88 (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

RAF Shawbury: The Juno Transition

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Steve Lynes from Sandshurst, United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0. In 2016, the Ministry of Defence signed a twenty-five-year contract with Ascent Flight Training to deliver the entire UK Military Flying Training System - elementary, basic, multi-engine, fast-jet, and rotary. For helicopters, Airbus was selected to supply thirty-two new aircraft...

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Image: Steve Lynes from Sandshurst, United Kingdom | CC BY 2.0

RAF Shawbury: Other Things That Happen at Shawbury

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit A. R. Yeo MortimerCat, CC BY 2.5. Helicopter training is the main job, but it is not the only one. The School of Air Operations Control - successor to the original air traffic school - trains controllers for the RAF and other services. The School of Aerospace Battle Management moved in from RAF Boulmer in Northum...

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Image: A. R. Yeo MortimerCat | CC BY 2.5