thanks to Barry Davidson for details of this former Royal Naval Air Station
HMS C0 Royal Navy anti-submarine (?) Wessex at Arbroath
HMS C1 Dominie of the Station Flight 1960, Control tower in the background.
HMS C2
HMS C3
HMS C4 1948
The ATC facility on the left is interesting. The left hand vehicle is a trailer being used as runway caravan and/or maybe an escort (?) carrier flying control simulator (the Albacores are certainly parked as they would have been on a carrier.) The right hand vehicle is a truck but with maybe a locally built structure on the back. The vehicle structure appears to have portholes! And as for the camouflage system well terms like wavy navy come to mind. Even the presence of a simulated crows nest on the mast means it can only be a naval station.
Just found this photo is an IWM photo ref IWM (A 19574). Apparently part of the aerodrome was set up to simulate a carrier flight deck and this is what is shown here.
Two poor photos showing crews from Fairey Barracuda
and a Lancaster/Lancastrian names Aries, Wikipedia tells us that “RAF Lancaster I PD328, was converted to a Lancastrian and renamed Aries“.
The Shropshire Lieutenancy website tells us that “in 1944, RAF navigation training was centred at the Empire Air Navigation School at RAF Shawbury and a Lancaster bomber PD 328 named ARIES was offered to the School for research flights. In October 1944, ARIES undertook the first RAF circumnavigation of the world, under the command of Wing Commander McKinley. The trip was successful, and ARIES returned after 53 days having flown over 200 hours, setting new world records. Aries was the first British military aircraft to fly around the world, and covered almost 36,000 nautical miles on this historic flight”.
Barry Davidson tells us about another similar pseudo carrier facility
RNAS EAST HAVEN (HMS Peewit) had a dummy aircraft landing carrier deck island named HMS Spurious. This was a 1930s converted Albion bus. It was also in use at HMS Condor. SEE
Peewit had a four-storey control tower of similar design to that in use at HMS Condor. It was demolished in early postwar period. However when Barry was growing up and travelling between Arbroath and Dundee there was a TWR of similar design to Watton/Swinderby. It was there in the 1950s/early 60s, but when he returned from Germany in 1970 it was longer there. He has searched high and low for this tower , including going through local archives.
Anyone who can help with a photo please pass it on to atchistory.
RNAS Stannergate later HMS Condor 2
atchistory 
I was Stationed at RNAS HMS Condor in 1970-71 in the Royal Marine Band. I was wandering if anyone had photos of the burial of the last Tot of rum ceremony that was performed close by the flag pole?
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Is there a website for any records for this establishment. As a very young boy in the mid to late fifties I lived on the station caravan site. Three of us managed to get on the runway on our tricycles to play and had to cycle up the runway as we spotted an aircraft coming in to land.
One of the other boys didn’t make it onto the grass as quickly and was picked up along with his tricycle by some sailors in a jeep directly under the wing of the aircraft before swerving onto the grass. I imagine we were too young to know each others names. I imagine we crawled back through the hole in the fence we got through..
Would such a record of an event like this be recorded ?
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It should have been recorded in the control tower watch log. These are sometimes available to view at the Public Record office. Alternatively try the Fleet Air Arm museum https://www.nmrn.org.uk/visit-us/fleet-air-arm-museum
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Something else I noticed is that the hangars are built in a line. On RAF airfields they are normally built on a curve, that was so a bomber (couldn’t? atchistory) hit them all in one bombing run.
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Hello ide just like to say I have a Xmas card that belonged to my Grand father from 1945 aboard HMS Condor I’m just trying to research his service . It is a menu from Xmas day 1945 and I wondered if you would like it as it is a piece of History
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Whilst at Edinburgh I was an ATC Officer with Edinburgh Wing Air Training Corps and during the 1980`s did an annual Gliding Camp duty at Arbroath most years. I actually landed and took off from the Dummy Flight deck with Cessna 150 G-ATZY during a pre camp visit to the base. The runways were unsuitable for landing a powered aircraft on. Before the Falkland war the tracked vehicles of 45 Commando were driving round and round the perimeter track to build up the miles on them. The Officer`s Mess bar had one of the best range of malts I have ever seen excellent when the weather was too bad to fly !!!!!
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There was a permanent gliding school at Arbroath for many years but like many others, it got ‘chopped’ in the 2016 melee
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Unusually for a Naval airfield this airfield only has 2 runways. It was normal for Naval ones to have 4.
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Richard
thanks for that. I went back to other sources of aerial views of Arbroath and you are correct it should have four runways. In fact the long straight perimeter tracks on the right and bottom of the photo were once the missing runways.
atchistory
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Latest news is that the Marines are moving out, dont know where. And The Black Watch here from Fort George.
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