 Plymouth
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1925 to present | | Location: | 50 25 N - 4 6 W | | 3.5nm NNE of Plymouth, Devon | | ICAO: EGHD | IATA: PLH | Elevation: 485 feet |
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| History of this Base/Heliport: | Help Us | |
Originally the Polo Ground, south of Roborough village, to the north of Plymouth. Mail flights began from the all grass field, followed by routes to Birmingham, Manchester and Belfast. The Aero Club was formed here in 1929. In 1935, a service to Cardiff started with DH Dragon Rapides and the long ties to the Channel Islands began with a route to Jersey in 1936. It began to decline in importance with the rise of Exeter Airport. 
Pre-war tension saw the formation of a Civil Air Guard in 1938. At the outbreak of WWII, Plymouth Roborough became a Royal Naval establishment but transferred to the RAF in 1940, under administrative control of the flying boat base at RAF Mount Batten. It was the only base to fly the Gloster Gladiator during the Battle of Britain but afterwards became home to an Air Sea Rescue unit.
The airfield's long association with the Royal Navy, began in the late 1940s with the arrival of the Tiger Moths of the Britannia Royal Naval College (BRNC) at Dartmouth. These were replaced by the Chipmunk T.10 in 1966 until the Flying Grading duties were taken over by a private contractor in the 1990s. With the closure of RNAS Portland in 1999, Flag Officer Sea Training (FOST) moved to Plymouth with its Dauphins operated under contract with Bond Helicopters. In Dec 2001, the BRNC Flying Grading duties were assumed by a reformed 727 Squadron.
The Aero Club building was put up around 1929, followed by a wooden restaurant in 1930 and the main hangar (which had the control tower at its apex) around 1931. At that time, a public road ran across the main runway (then 14/32) just south east of its intersection with 06/24. A pair of smaller hangars were erected around 1940, to the south of the bisecting road. These housed a pair of Army Air Corps Sioux AH.1 in the late 1960s and early 1970s and were demolished around 1973, in part to make way for a new Teacher Training College just to the south of the airfield. The mid 1970s also saw the extension of the main runway, together with earthworks to level it and its conversion to an asphalt surface. This completed around 1978, when the public road across it was also closed. The secondary runway 06/24 was also asphalted in the early 1980s, a new control tower was built and the 01/19 grass strip fell out of use. New airport admin and office building were erected in 1983, together with replacement of the restaurant. The main runway was further extended and lighting improved in the early 1990s and the main road at its west end was diverted in 2004 to give it more usable length (without extending it). |