Qualla: RNAS Culdrose

RNAS Culdrose: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Dixon, CC BY-SA 2.0. Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose was originally meant to last about ten years. Built by John Laing and Son and commissioned as HMS Seahawk in 1947, the airfield outside Helston was a wartime contingency that the Royal Navy expected to close down quickly. Nearly eight decades later, Culdrose has become one of the largest helicopter bases in Europe, the operational home of every Royal Navy Merlin anti-submarine helicopter, and the principal Cornish employer of the Lizard Peninsula. The ten-year wartime airfield has outlasted most of its planners.

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Image: David Dixon | CC BY-SA 2.0

RNAS Culdrose: From Fighter School to Carrier Backbone

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andrew Thomas from Shrewsbury, UK, CC BY-SA 2.0. Admiralty surveyors began looking at the fields outside Helston in 1942. By 1947 the airfield was commissioned. The original plan was simple: a Naval Fighting School to train pilots in the Navy's first jets. Within a few years the role had multiplied. Culdrose trialled the Navy's...

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Image: Andrew Thomas from Shrewsbury, UK | CC BY-SA 2.0

RNAS Culdrose: The Plan Called PYTHON

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alexrk2, CC BY-SA 3.0. There is a quieter line in Culdrose's history. From 1968, the base was one of the designated locations for plan PYTHON - the British government's standing arrangement for continuity of government in the event of nuclear war. The Lizard Peninsula's southerly position, well clear o...

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Image: Alexrk2 | CC BY-SA 3.0

RNAS Culdrose: The Olympic Flame, Delivered by Airbus

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit EvaK, CC BY-SA 2.5. On 18 May 2012 a yellow-painted British Airways Airbus A319 named The Firefly turned final at Culdrose. On board, in a specially designed lantern, was the Olympic Flame, flown in from Athens International. The passengers walking off the aircraft included Lord Coe, Princess Anne, ...

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Image: EvaK | CC BY-SA 2.5

RNAS Culdrose: The Dummy Deck and the Volunteer Band

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mutney, CC0. Walk around the base today and you will find some of the strangest training infrastructure in the British armed forces. The Royal Naval School of Flight Deck Operations operates a full-size replica of an Invincible-class aircraft carrier deck - the Dummy Deck - so that trainees c...

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Image: Mutney | CC0