RAF Lossiemouth

57.7087, -3.3289 — view on OpenStreetMap ↗

About

RAF Lossiemouth opened on the Moray coast in 1939 and spent the war chiefly as a bomber training station, home to No. 20 Operational Training Unit flying Vickers Wellingtons and Avro Ansons. Its position on the Scottish coast also made it a launching point for attacks on German shipping and on the battleship Tirpitz in Norwegian waters — the Lancasters that finally sank her in 1944 flew from the north of Scotland. Unlike most wartime stations it never closed, and it remains one of the RAF’s principal fast-jet and maritime-patrol bases today.

Sources: This page was compiled from publicly available historical sources, including RAF Lossiemouth — Royal Air Force official station page and RAF Lossiemouth — Wikipedia. The text is original and has been written from factual source material; no source text has been copied unless specifically quoted and attributed.

Photographs

"Turning finals with three greens for runway 05 to roll." A Tornado aircraft of RAF Lossiemouth doing circuits at dusk. Aircrew have to practise various forms of airfield approaches on a monthly basis to keep their flying categories current. Approaches can be full radar approaches where the aircraft is talked down by air traffic control or approaches can be executed solely by the crew using internal instruments. "Three greens" refers to the three green lights which confirm that the landing gear is down and locked and "roll" is where the aircraft touches down and applies power to go around again. This procedure in RAF parlance is called "circuits and bumps"!
ⓘ licence & creditDes Colhoun / CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%22Turning_finals_with_three_greens_for_runway_05_to_roll.%22_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1568300.jpgView source & full licence →
"Flaps, undercarriage, power on; going round again!" A Tornado of RAF Lossiemouth overshoots runway 05. The number 05 originates from the magnetic direction of the runway i.e. 050 degrees magnetic. So when you hear them talk of Heathrow's runway 28 then you'll know that the runway almost runs east-west. Can you see the navigation/anti collision lights on the Tornado? Red for port and green for starboard it is; but which is right and left? The old school RAF teaching used the formula, "There's no red port left!" That's enough military secrets for one night and besides I don't think I really ought to be in this field!
ⓘ licence & creditDes Colhoun / CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%22Flaps,_undercarriage,_power_on,_going_round_again%22_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1568376.jpgView source & full licence →

No people are cross-referenced to this airfield yet. Links appear as squadron postings, crews and service records are added.