ABOUT & HISTORY

Hawarden  It is situated just southwest of the River Dee and 7 miles (11 km) west of the city of Chester, England. It is close to Liverpool and Manchester. The nearby Hawarden Castle (1752) was for 60 years the home of William Ewart Gladstone, the Victorian prime minister of the United Kingdom. We are pleased to be able to operate from this airfield which has not only a connection with Supermarine Spitfire training but also gives us a fantastic opportunity to offer flights over the Welsh border areas and to take advantage of the scenery. Hawarden airfield developed as part of a result of a government programme to develop shadow factories for aircraft production should there be a War. A factory was constructed in 1937 with an adjacent field being acquired for test flying. From 1939 through to 1945 5,540 Vickers Wellington bombers were.  It became RAF Hawarden in 1940 when 48 Maintenance Unit (MU) became resident to prepare Vickers Wellingtons, Westland Lysanders, Handley page/Hampden Herefords and Blackburn Bothas for operational use. Other units that flew from Hawarden  included the Air Transport Auxiliary and No 3 Ferry Pilots Pool as well as a succession of Operational training units preparing aircrew for operational duties.

Most importantly the airfield was home to Supermarine Spitfires from June 1940 with No 7 Operational Training unit. They also operated the Miles Master and Hawker Hurricane Post war, aircraft construction returned in 1948 when de Havilland took over the factory and under re-organisation of the British aircraft industry become part of Hawker-Siddeley and then British Aerospace as it continues today. The RAF station closed on 31 March 1959. The Airport is currently owned and operated by Airbus UK and is primarily used by Airbus to transport the wings built for the Airbus fleet in the surrounding factory buildings. These wings are transported to the Airbus final assembly point in Europe aboard the Airbus Beluga (A3ST) aircraft, which regularly operates in and out of the airport. Spitfires.com will be operating from the Aviation Park Group FBO, the Private Jet terminal, on the north eastern side of the airport.