Linton on Ouse : The end of an era
 

The Yorkshire Universities Air Squadron left their home at Linton this morning to take up residency just up the road at Leeming were they will join the already incumbent Northumbrian Universities Air Squadron . The departure of YUAS brings to a close over 80 years of operational flying from Linton with a NOTAM issued today of an airfield closure notice and the station well into its eventual drawdown at the end of 2021 . Very sad times indeed . Some details here ;
https://twitter.com/RAFLintonOnOuse
and
https://www.facebook.com/raf.leeming/

Sad news- some of my happiest days in the RAF were spent at Linton.

Sad to see another great airfield close. I went through BFTS there in 77/8 when the dispersal was a sea of red and white Jet Provosts.

My youngest was a member of YUAS only a couple of years ago and for a while she lived in the west wing of the Officers’ Mess, as I had done. I helped her move in. On arrival at the rear door she had forgotten the combination to the push button door lock. Almost without thinking I pressed the buttons and opened the door. Same combination forty years on!

Leeming is a very long way north, especially bearing in mind that YUAS’s earlier home was Finningley. Cadets travelling from Leeds are going to find that journey even more inconvenient.

Maybe they should rename it OJIYUAS - Only Just In Yorkshire UAS.

YUAS
 

Whilst I share your sadness at the closure of LOO and acknowledge that Leeming is far less convenient for York based students you can hardly say that Leeming is only just in Yorkshire. In fact it is almost the geographic centre!

BV

I was thinking you are geographically challenged - must be a Nav in disguise!

Surely Leeming is way to the north of the centre

But then I google mapped it and saw you are spot on!

TR
 

That’s why I googled it myself before posting. Never assume...

BV

Great days at Linton. We JEFTS lot lived in Hornet Block if memory serves correctly.

Some good biking trails in the bondu around the airfield.

Well done Royal Air Wing of 2020...:=

Geographic centre? Really?
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....ad0d092143.jpg
Of course, I'm just a Nav.

Yorkshire
 

Anything South of York doesn’t really count.

BV

My Grandad was based there in WW2 with the Canadian Air Force, as an engineer for the Halifax bombers, saw a lot of crews off, not so many returning. He also received his medals from the station commander there couple of years before he died, after having not received them when he finished serving, no idea who it was who presented them, but could upload the picture if asked for.

Monday 13th August 1979, 09.30, I arrived at Linton to start a near 41 year career with the MOD in various guises. :ok:

Linton Memorial Room
 

Is there any news on what has happened to the contents of the excellent Memorial Room at Linton on Ouse?

I was just thinking the same, SpekeSoftly. It was run by a most knowledgeable and enthusiastic chap 5 or so years back.

I remember the gentleman well Skua - Wing Commander (Retired) Alan Mawby. Some years ago he was kind enough to arrange a visit for myself, my wife, and my late mother whose first husband's Lancaster Mk11 failed to return to Linton from a bombing raid in 1943.

I've since found the following link which (sadly) answers my question:-

https://35squadron.wordpress.com/201...memorial-room/

It does if you’re at Sheffield or Hull University. More difficult to get from there for a student who isn’t lucky enough to have access to a private car. My daughter struggled even to get from Leeds to Linton in time for Friday evening town nights.

I also recall great days at Linton when in 1972 it was by far and away the Premier BFTS. The staff student relationship was at the forefront of a new era. Just imagine being permitted to be in the bar in the Officers Mess until 19.00. Indeed, it was almost a parade for all aviators on the Station, a different era from today! Very sad that a station with such a great tradition has gone.

Come on pilots, don't let a Navigator correct us pilots on a point of navigation. Who ever thinks that Leeming is in the center of Yorkshire needs a new map. It is in the center of North Yorkshire, however Linton is far more central to the whole county. I recall how my friends who were posted to Leeming for BFTS complained how lucky we were to be 20 minutes from York. Of course in those days the attractions of Newcastle and Durham were not quite the same!

I remember when Alan Mawby joined 214 as a captain on Victor tankers. On his first flight with his new crew he had put his co-pilot through his paces, making him work harder than perhaps he had been used to. In the crewroom afterwards the chap remarked (jovially) "our new captain is a bully". Tom Brown's Schooldays was being shown in TV at the time, so Alan was promptly nicknamed "Flashman" , which stuck while he remained on 214.

Really nice chap though, good pilot, and I was always very happy flying with him.

I was house member at one time, and well remember a large amount of 'art' in the mess loft. Going back a couple of years ago, I noticed that all the drawings of past aircrew that lined the corridors were missing. I wonder if they are now in the loft as well.

It would be a terrible shame if no one has thought to go and look.

It was some of the most memorable two years of my career, made more so by those two wonderful summers of 74 and 75.

Along with - I guess - a relatively small number, I was commissioned there in 1968. What was ITS moved from South Cerney to Linton as AOTS (Aircrew Officer Training School) for a short-ish while before (I think) combining with the ground pounders at Henlow (?) as OCTU.

So different then (indicator of old git); to think we were turning out 30 or 40 commissioned pilots and navs every 5 weeks! And that was just the "gutter entry", not counting the General List RAFC Cranwell Flight Cadets!

AOTS also spent a short period (1968 - 1969?) at Church Fenton. I remember it well!

I recall that when NUAS moved from Ouston to Leeming there were similar howls from the students and instructors that they were now too far away from their Universities.

So, we now have NUAS too far south and YUAS too far north...

Indeed - I joined there on 1 Apr 1968 - 50th anniversary of the formation of the RAF and, incidentally, April Fool's Day!

Shytorque
"My youngest was a member of YUAS only a couple of years ago and for a while she lived in the west wing of the Officers’ Mess, as I had done. I helped her move in. On arrival at the rear door she had forgotten the combination to the push button door lock. Almost without thinking I pressed the buttons and opened the door. Same combination forty years on!"

Love, love, love it!

Apologies for the "brain fart" about AOTS and Linton. It was of course Church Fenton! Doh! (other training bases in Yorkshire are available....)

It's an age thing you know - why did I come into the study?

My (very slight) justification is that I went on to fly my Chipmunk Course at Linton rather than CF. But that's another story.......

From Sheffield it takes 20 min longer to get to Leeming than the over an hour that the NUAS students have been coping with from Newcastle for over 20 years. I’m sure transport will be arranged.

Twenty minutes longer up the A1 by road from the south, yes but as I mentioned, many students don’t have their own transport. RAF road transport to be provided from Sheffield and Hull? I hope you are right; that would be useful but the road transport for Linton (civilian driver) ran to and from York station. My daughter had Friday lectures till 17:00 in Leeds which meant she was often late.

As was my maternal Grandfather, but as a M.o.D. Plod.

Spent all of 1979 there on the JP 3/5 - happy times.

Is it my imagination or was there a diy bowling lane in the roof of the O's Mess which had been there since the war ?

Yes there was/is! That place was a bit of a rabbit warren if you knew where to look.

On a slightly related note - are there any good (FJ flying) RAF bases left these days? Linton, close to York with all its delights. St Mawgan, beautiful scenery, surf and the feeling of being "overseas". Wittering/Cottesmore, Stamford and all its fine pubs and restaurants. Even Colt was good in small doses if you could put up with the locals! Leuchars was great for golf and not too far from Embra.

Lossie is still a great (albeit Marmite) location. Never like Marham or Coningsby much - too flat and boring. I suppose being close to Lincoln was an upside. Y Fali... yep, still there.

Sorry - feeling nostalgic for what was still there about a decade ago...

Thread Drift........

You didn't mention Chivenor - the finest Station that should never, ever have been closed.

If the RAF is destined only to have one operational base - Chivenor should have been it.

Nevermind QRA and other trivial requirements.

RAF Linton on Ouse
 

I arrived there on frosty evening in January, 1962, after driving up from Devon.
I was on the Royal Navy's 102 Fixed Wing course to fly, first, the JP3 and then the Vampire
The Commanding Officer was a BoB Hurricane pilot named Grp.Cpt.John L.W.Ellacombe.DFC and Bar.RAF.
If you want any incentive to work your guts out, try having such an example as your CO.
Even the CFI, Tommy Blackham, had an exemplary career as a Bomber pilot. Fantastic encouragement, even for one of the dark blue persuasion !
What more could you ask ?
Linton was a legendary station, as was Church Fenton then, buzzing continuously with a great bunch of "studes" and instructors, which made for a superb introduction to any flying career.
I was proudly wearing my Wings after just thirteen months, fully equipped to go straight on to the Hunter.
Fifteen years later a fellow course member even went back as CO of the RNEFTS, part of the Linton "clutch" under Tom Eeles. It doesn't get better than that.
Subsequently, after nearly 60 years, I have managed to track down my first instructor who had a very necessary, disciplined influence on a bit of a wild, mouthy kid !
22 and a half thousand hours later, I have no doubt what the Linton effect did for me.

And now they've closed it............
Does any one at MOD actually realise what they've done ?

Does anyone at MOD actually care? :(

Very sad to see it go. I spent nearly 4 years at Linton as a QFI from 1974-78, on 2 Sqn and Standards. My second favourite tour ( the best was Cyprus, and hard to beat) :)

Now well into retirement, I'm sorry to see another station close, one that played a part in my decision to join the Service. After doing OASC in 1963, I had an offer to train as a Nav and it arrived near simultaneously with another commercial offer. For various reasons I took the latter and found myself in York, where the constant noise of Linton's JP 3s was part of the daily background and a reminder that maybe I'd done the wrong thing. I got involved as a civilian Instructor with a local ATC squadron and, probably the last straw, one day in town bumped into a chap on my syndicate at Biggin, then in pilot training. Net result was an inquiry as to whether that Nav offer still stood - it did, and in August 1964 I reported to South Cerney and have never regretted all that followed.

No soul
 

This marks a sad end to another of the RAF’s historic stations.

The battle to retain Linton, if there ever was one, was lost long ago.

But surely a greater effort could have been made by the RAF to preserve something of the history of this important station, and its satellites, that was enshrined in Linton-on-Ouse’s Memorial Room?

What price preserving in a single location the unique exhibits that are such a fitting testament to the RAF and the RCAF in North Yorkshire? The cost would have been tiny.

Has the RAF lost its soul?

Shame on the RAF.

There are very few people in the RAF that care about history nowadays.

There is no-one in the MOD who cares a jot about history.

It's all about the money and personal political agendas.

All very sad.

Arc

I blame the fun detectors, whose sole agenda is to close stations in nice locations, where people are enjoying life, and leave the RAF with stations in bleak locations - Coningsby, Lossiemouth and Marham spring to mind. When you think back to the many stations we once had in lovely areas it brings tears to the eyes of an old man like me. How's about Abingdon, Bassingbourn, Chivenor, Coltishall, Gaydon, Little Rissington, Lyneham, St Mawgan and Thorney Island to name but a few? Not forgetting, of course all the Vale of York stations, which will shortly become another memory.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....59cf854b7c.jpg
Linton JP line, early 1965. Apologies for the quality of the photograph.

Sleeve Wing,

​​​​​​"And now they've closed it............
Does any one at MOD actually realise what they've done ?"

ShyTorque,

​​​​​​Does anyone at MOD actually care?

Er, why on earth should they care? The RAF has closed an airfield for which they no longer have a need, one of many that they have closed over the years.

Er, I never actually said they should.