Aviation History in Bournemouth stretches back to 1910 when one of the first Aviation Meetings was held. The event was considered a great success, although sadly marred by the first British aviation fatality, when Charles Rolls, half of the famous Rolls Royce partnership, stalled and crashed in front of the main grandstand.

Training of the Royal Flying Corps pilots took place during the early years of the First World War at an airfield now overtaken by growth of the town. Later in the war early experiments in air to ground radio transmissions were made. The Marconi company having a developmental laboratory in the town

The 1919 Schneider trophy was held at Bournemouth, but the event was fogged out and the only pilot to complete the course was found to have been racing around the reserve marker buoy and was disqualified.

Bournemouth then began to use the local racecourse as an airfield, staging races for several years until a mid-air collision stopped all flying from the site.

The current airfield was surveyed in the 1930's by Sir Alan Cobham, an early pioneer of British Aviation. However, the second World War started before any building work began.

Much of the foundations for the runways were formed from the rubble from bombed buildings in Southampton

The airfield had many uses during the war, being used as a base for fighters and bombers, glider towing, cargo and ferrying. When Eisenhower arrived to take over the Allied Armies, he flew into the airport. His pilot was none other than Paul Tibbets who went on drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima!

After the war the airfield was used as a base for BOAC until the new airfield at Heathrow was ready. The airfield was used as a BOAC engineering and training base for many years. It was also home of Vickers, and nearly all the Viscounts and BAC1-11s were built here.

For several years the airport was fairly stagnant under council ownership. Flight Refuelling (FRA) chose Bournemouth as their base and this decision represented a major boost to the airport. Over the past ten years the facilities have improved, new colour radar has been installed, and the main runway lengthened and re-surfaced.

Traffic now includes antique jets, military transports, transatlantic flights, home-builts, commuter airlines and, of course, Bournemouth Flying Club who, we are proud to say, constitute the majority of airfield movements!

Bournemouth Flying Club