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RAF Arbroath in Angus is best understood not as a typical RAF bomber or fighter base, but as one of the Fleet Air Arm’s busiest wartime training airfields. Opening in June 1940 as HMS Condor, it became a hub for the naval aviation skills that carriers required: deck landing technique, observer training, air gunnery, radar familiarisation, and the many specialised drills that turned pilots into carrier pilots rather than simply competent fliers. Its wartime infrastructure reflected that intensity. The station had four main runways, with an unusual feature: two formed part of the perimeter track. Even more distinctive was a smaller runway used for practice aircraft carrier landings, complete with a dummy deck painted on the tarmac – an unmistakable sign that this was a place where the Fleet Air Arm’s unique operating environment was taught and rehearsed.
Training activity at Arbroath began early and ran continuously through the war. One of the first units noted as arriving was No. 767 Squadron, which carried out deck-landing instruction. Deck-landing training was not a simple ‘add-on’ to flying: it demanded precision approaches, strict speed control, and an ability to recover an aircraft safely onto a moving ship in poor weather and at night – skills that had to be drilled until they were instinctive. Arbroath also hosted air observer training, initially using Fairey Swordfish and later Fairey Albacore aircraft. Observer and navigation training was fundamental to naval strike and reconnaissance, particularly in the featureless sea environment where a small error in track could mean missing a convoy or failing to find a carrier task group.
As wartime technology evolved, Arbroath’s syllabus expanded into newer fields. No. 783 Squadron is recorded using a variety of aircraft types for radar training over an extended period from 1941, reflecting the growing importance of radar for night flying, bad-weather navigation, and detection. The station’s workload became so high that East Haven near Carnoustie was used by some deck-landing units in 1943, showing how training demand could exceed what even a busy airfield could comfortably absorb. Arbroath also hosted target towing and service trials until 1944, again pointing to a broad training and development role rather than a narrow ‘one unit, one job’ identity.
Although Arbroath did not have the same public profile as some operational bomber bases, its wartime contribution was foundational. Every carrier squadron depended on a pipeline that produced pilots who could land on deck, crews who understood naval procedures, and specialists who could operate new technologies under pressure. Arbroath helped supply that pipeline. Its post-war transition into a technical engineering school site and, later, a Royal Marines barracks underlines that it was always a station built around training, skills, and support. For modern visitors, Arbroath remains one of the more legible wartime airfields in physical terms: the survival of runways, hangars, and support buildings makes it a particularly valuable location for understanding how the Fleet Air Arm trained at scale during the war.
- Wartime identity: Fleet Air Arm training airfield (HMS Condor)
- Signature training: deck-landing instruction, air observer and radar training
- Distinctive feature: dummy carrier deck runway for practice landings