Originally Posted by
chevvron
That's the place.
BAe had just built a new production facility there (built 10 Hawks there so I'm told) and closed it again soon after. Doug Arnold bought it when he sold Blackbushe in '84 and I competed there in '85 for drag racing.
Bitteswell was a BAe facility that closed in 1983. The airfield was sold to Doug Arnold but he had shut up shop by 1987 and the airfield site was redeveloped into the huge Magna Park. It was the old Armstrong Whitworth, then Hawker Siddeley maintenance and repair organisation and dealt with Vulcan, Shackleton, Buccaneer and Hawk. BAe never built a production line for anything there as it was never a manufacturing unit under BAe, just MRO. It was closed as part of a BAe rationalisation that also saw Hurn and Bracebridge Heath close. The Hawk confusion probably arises from the fact that it prepped and delivered the Red Arrows Hawks. When BAe, in another bout of rationalisation, closed Dunsfold and Kingston the Hawk production line moved north, initially to Warton and then to Brough with the new build Hawks doing a one time take off from the short runway at Brough to Holme on Spalding Moor, but when BAe also closed that they went to Warton.