RAF Machrihanish

RAF Machrihanish lay at the tip of the Kintyre peninsula in Argyll, on a site first used in the First World War. A new airfield was built there in 1941 and taken over by the Royal Navy as HMS Landrail, becoming one of the busiest stations in Britain for training Fleet Air Arm crews and for anti-submarine and convoy-escort work over the western approaches. It closed in 1946 but reopened in the Cold War, rebuilt with NATO funding and one of the longest runways in the country, and was used for decades by the RAF and the US Navy. The military left in the 1990s, and the site is now a business park, with Campbeltown Airport using the airfield.