RAF Gosport

RAF Gosport occupied a long-established military flying ground on the Hampshire coast opposite Portsmouth, in use from July 1914. Through the First World War and the inter-war years it was one of the cradles of British air power, home to a procession of Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force squadrons and to pioneering work in torpedo-dropping and fleet reconnaissance — the techniques worked out at Gosport shaped naval aviation for a generation. By the Second World War it remained a busy coastal station, supporting anti-shipping, army-cooperation and fighter units flying types such as the Blenheim, Hudson, Defiant, Hurricane and Spitfire, alongside Fleet Air Arm squadrons operating the Barracuda and other naval aircraft. As the Fleet Air Arm’s importance grew the airfield passed fully to the Royal Navy: it was commissioned as HMS Siskin in 1945 and, from 1956, became HMS Sultan, the Navy’s principal engineering training establishment. The site survives in that role today, with a small airfield museum recording its century of aviation history.