RAF Coningsby
Air station in Coningsby, EnglandWikipedia
9
MENTIONS
5
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4
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Search complete. 9 mentions across 5 episodes found for "RAF Coningsby".
Sep 22, 2026
James CarrawayGUEST
That's Eddie Rickenbacker's squadron of World War I fame.
James CarrawayGUEST
Flew the Raptor for four years and I was fortunate enough to be the first Raptor pilot to be selected for an exchange tour where I got to go to RAF Coningsby to convert to the Eurofighter Typhoon and then I went to 29 Squadron to be an OCU instructor and I was there for four years and that's how we got connected through mutual connections and so I'm very Very fortunate to have had an active duty military career, getting to fly those awesome jets.
James CarrawayGUEST
After the UK tour, I went from active duty Air Force to the Reserves where I was able to get hired by a major U.S. airline and learn the 737 of which I'm a first officer on that now and I am currently working as a liaison between First Air Force which is one of the numbered air forces within the U.S. Air Force and an organization called Civil Air Patrol, which has a lot of similarities to the UK Air Cadets.
James CarrawayGUEST
Civil Air Patrol has about 70,000 civilian volunteers, both adults and teenage cadets, who they serve as the US Air Force's civilian auxiliary.
Tail DraggerHOST
Today is September 15.
Tail DraggerHOST
86 years since those squadrons scrambled, the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight based at RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire still puts airworthy spitfires and hurricanes in the air on commemorative occasions.
Tail DraggerHOST
When those aircraft fly over the Channel Coast, people stop what they're doing and look up.
Tail DraggerHOST
I don't blame them.
Tail DraggerHOST
Lancaster crews from 617 Squadron used those weapons to sink the German battleship Tirpitz in November of 1944 and to destroy hardened submarine pens on the Atlantic coast that years of conventional bombing had never managed to touch, and 617 Squadron is still flying today.
Tail DraggerHOST
They fly Eurofighter Typhoons now out of RAF Coningsby.
Tail DraggerHOST
The aircraft is beyond anything Gibson's crews could have imagined, but the squadron number on the fuselage is the same one those nineteen Lancasters carried out over the North Sea in the dark.
Tail DraggerHOST
The Avro Lancaster itself flew over a hundred and fifty thousand sorties by the end of the war.
Jules HudsonHOST
The age of the long-range bomber is arguably over, as missiles and smaller multi-role aircraft have taken its place.
Jules HudsonHOST
But the story of the RAF bomber itself is a long and illustrious one, and few airfields or is perhaps connected to that story, as here, RAF Coningsby.
Jules HudsonHOST
First opened in 1940, it's played a key role in the frontline defence of the United Kingdom for over 70 years.
Jules HudsonHOST
Perhaps the most famous British bomber of all time was the Avro Lancaster.
Jules HudsonHOST
No bomber before it or since has been as successful, and at the end of the Second World War, the head of Bomber Command, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris, wrote to the makers, Avro, I should say this, to those who put that shining sword in our hand.
Jules HudsonHOST
Without your genius and your efforts, we would not have prevailed, for I believe the Lancaster to be the greatest single factor in winning the war.
Jules HudsonHOST
Today, there is only one left flying in Britain, and it's here at RAF Coningsby.
Jules HudsonHOST
Roger.
Bob BaylissGUEST
Uh, and that was, uh, quite a change of years of aircraft work onto something of, of that, that ilk.
Bob BaylissGUEST
Um, then I went back onto aircraft, uh, onto a Tornado aircraft at RAF Coningsby, and then finished off at RAF Waddington.
Bob BaylissGUEST
Finished my service in July 2020.
Graham KingHOST
Wow, that's a good caree...