Shoreham Airport

Shoreham Airport has been at the forefront of British aviation since the first powered flight there by Harold Piffard in July 1910 in his Hummingbird aircraft. The first powered flight in Britain was at Farnborough in 1908. The cafe in the present terminal building is called 'The Hummingbird' He was joined later that year by the Pashley brothers in developing Shoreham as a flying training base. On 4th July the airfield was the starting point for the first commercial flight in the UK.
At the outbreak of World War 1, No 3 Reserve Squadron arrived and many pilots were trained at Shoreham on Maurice Farman Longhorn pusher biplanes, being posted to operational units with around 10-12 hours flying experience.
No 14 Squadron RFC was formed in 1915 and was soon posted to the Middle East where it served out the rest of the war. No 14 Squadron RAF is still in existence flying Beechcraft Shadow R1 aircraft.
At the end of the war, the 1st Canadian Air Wing was formed and moved to Shoreham where they spent time testing some of the 65 captured German aircraft that were store at the airfield.
After 1921 the use of the airfield diminished and it was returned to farming. in the early 1930's Brighton, Hove and Worthing got together and funded what was to become Brighton, Hove and Worthing Municipal Airport and built the grand Terminal Building and Hangars that are still in existence, the airport opening on 13th June 1936.
At the outbreak of World war 2, one of the first incidents at the airport was the arrival of 3 Polish airmen who had escaped across Europe in a plane. The RAF took over the airport in 1940 and it became home to No 277 Air Sea Rescue Squadron, who equipped with Lysanders, Defiants, Walrus amphibians and latterly Spitfires helped rescue near 600 downed airmen from the Channel. The airport was bombed on several occasions with the original main hangar suffering damage. Spitfires from the mostly French manned No 345 Squadron RAF in support of D-Day.
At the end of the war the airport reverted to civilian use and in 1982 had it's first concrete runway installed, during which construction an unexploded German 250Kg bomb was found.
In 1989 the local branch of the Royal Air Forces Association started the Shoreham Air show which ran until 2015. Some of those involved in the Air show are commemorated around the Propeller Monument in front of the Terminal Building. Unfortunately, on 22nd August 2015 a former RAF Hawker Hunter (WV372) registration G-BXFI was attempting a loop manoeuvre and crashed onto the nearby A27 killing 11 and injuring 16 others. The pilot survived the crash but was charged with manslaughter but acquitted. The resulting investigation lead to significant tightening of regulations at British Air Shows.

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Source

• Text: Kaj Metz + Sharky Ward
• Photos: Anthony (Sharky) Ward