A Catalogue of UK Airfields
This site provides a listing of all known UK airfields. To date the list stands at 1750 airfields and I have no doubt more remain to be discovered.
Coverage
The list covers all known airfields used for powered aircraft operations and for gliding. It does not encompass sites created specifically for other aerial sports such as hang gliding, parachuting or microlight activity as many are of very transient nature.
History and Preservation
No in depth history of an individual airfield is included (or indeed a consideration) in this project. I will leave this research to individual historians who can do full justice to such work and give airfields the recognition they fully merit.
For serious research and for anyone who cares about airfield preservation I would like to direct users to Keith Jillings' Action for Airfields site. UK airfields are disappearing at a significant rate - as the images on my pages will show.
Planning Policy Statement 3 (PPS 3) has been developed to progress the Government's agenda to provide a national policy framework for housing. It says that previously developed 'Brownfield' land sites should be considered for housing development. The existing PPG 3 section defines 'Previously Developed' land with two example exclusions, hospital grounds and an airfield. From Feb 2006 airfields have been removed from the exclusion list - a move that could see many disused airfields disappear (and possibly active airfields as well).
Data Presentation
Airfield record format :
| Airport Code | Name | Alternative Name | Latitude | Longitude | Year Opened | Status in 1944 | Current Use | Remarks |
| EGLF | Farnborough | --- | N 51 16 33 | W 00 46 35 | 1904 | RAF. 24 Grp. Photo School | Airfield | Active |
| X2GP | Gosport | Fort Grange | N 50 48 20 | W 01 10 32 | 1914 | RAF. 16 Grp. Coastal Dev Unit. RN HMS Siskin | Housing |
The airfield is now extinct but some hangars remain as part of HMS Sultan, containing instructional airframes. (10/2006) |
Colour Codes
Each airfield record is colour coded to indicate its status. Gliding sites and Private Strips are only shown in their specific colour if they are not sited on an existing airfield, active or inactive.
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Active |
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Inactive |
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Blue |
Airfields |
Green |
Airfield closed after WW2 |
|
|
Orange |
Gliding Sites. |
Brown |
Airfield closed prior to WW2 |
|
|
Mauve |
Private Strips |
Black |
Airfield details incomplete |
|
Airfield Codes
All airfields have been given a specific identity code. If an airfield has a current ICAO code I have used this. All other airfields (active or disused) have been assigned a code using a group that will avoid confusion with the official ICAO system. For these I have adopted a four letter alphanumeric code beginning with X.
The second digit of the code is a number - this generally shows the approximate location of the airfield. Numbers 1 to 5 are allocated to airfields in England by Latitude (51N to 55N), 6 is used for Scotland, 7 for Wales and 8 for Northern Ireland. X9 codes are used primarily for private strips. X0 codes are slightly different, these being used for airfields that existed prior to WW2 only.
Examples of these codes are X4YR for York Rufforth (a disused WW2 airfield) and X0LH for the WW1 aerodrome at Larkhill.
Remarks
The remarks column provides further details on each airfield as supplied by many contributors to the pages. My sincere thanks to everyone who has taken the time and effort to pass on this valuable data..
For anyone interested in serious airfield research - especially in relation to manufacturing sites - I can heartily recommend the 5 volume work written by Ron Smith entitled British Built Aircraft. This title is a misnomer in that it does not convey the wealth of additional material concerning company and airfield histories. The final volume of this excellent series has recently been published.
Email to John Woodside
Last Update: 26 June 2007