page_title: RAF Ringway
section_title: Second World War
hierarchical_section_title: RAF Ringway / Second World War
caption_attribution_description: English: Paratroopers from the 6th Royal Welch Parachute Battalion undergoing physical training at Ringway, UK. In the foreground a Whitley III is serviced.
context_page_description: RAF Ringway was a Royal Air Force station in Ringway, Cheshire, England, near Manchester. It was operational from 1939 until 1957. The site of the station is now occupied by Manchester Airport.
context_section_description: Construction of a Royal Air Force station, including two large hangars, workshops, barrack blocks and ancillary accommodation, began in the northeast corner of the airport during spring 1939, with phased completion during early 1940. One of the hangars was intended for use by No. 613 (City of Manchester) Squadron, but this unit had been moved south at the outbreak of war. RAF Ringway was therefore initially used by No. 1 Operational Training Unit, RAF Coastal Command.
  From June 1940, Ringway became the wartime base for No.1 Parachute Training School RAF, which was charged with the initial training of all allied paratroopers trained in Europe (60,000) and for development of parachute drops of equipment; also the development of military gliding operations. Men and women agents of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) were also trained to jump.
  Comedian Frank Muir, spent several years at the school in the photographic section taking slow motion film of jumps on a project intended to decrease the frequency of parachutes failing (sometimes called "Roman Candle"). He recalled the Special Operations Executive training centre, housed in an Edwardian house on the outskirts of the airfield, where he was assigned to take pictures of the agents for identity documents.  There was an additional SOE holding centre in a large house in nearby Bowdon.
  No.14 Ferry Pilot Pool of the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) was based at Ringway between 1940 and 1945. The veteran ATA aircrews delivered many thousands of military aircraft to operational units which had been built, modified or repaired at Ringway, Woodford, Barton and at other northwest aircraft factories and airfields.
  Over 4,400 warplanes were built at Ringway by Fairey Aviation and Avro. The aircraft included the Fairey Battle, Fairey Fulmar, Fairey Barracuda, Bristol Beaufighter, Handley Page Halifax and Fairey Gannet. Avro's experimental department, located in Ringway's 1938-built northside hangar between mid-1939 and late 1945, completed the prototype Avro Manchester bomber. This was followed in January 1941 by the prototype of the famous Avro Lancaster bomber. The last warplane prototype to be assembled here was the Avro Lincoln bomber which first flew from Ringway on 9 July 1944. Avro built over 100 Avro York military transport aircraft in the three 1941/42 southside hangars. Two hangars built in the NW corner of the airfield during 1939/40 for use by Fairey Aviation remain in use, one for aircraft maintenance and the other for ground operations. The other three wartime hangars built for Fairey's were demolished during the 1990s.
  No. 613 (City of Manchester) Squadron had its home base at RAF Ringway during 1939 and again from 1946 to 1957 when it flew Supermarine Spitfires and de Havilland Vampire jet fighters in its fighter role as a unit within the Royal Auxiliary Air Force.
caption: Paratroopers from the 6th (Royal Welch) Parachute Battalion undergoing physical training with No. 1 Parachute Training School at Ringway, with a Whitley III in foreground, August 1942
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