RAF Collyweston began as a practical wartime solution: a satellite landing ground built to support the heavy activity around RAF Wittering and the wider training and operational network in the East Midlands. Set on high ground near the village of Collyweston, close to Stamford, it was laid out as a typical RAF expansion-period airfield, with grass runways, dispersals, and the functional buildings needed to operate in all weathers. It never had the scale or fame of the main stations, but it did something equally important. It provided capacity, space, and flexibility at a time when both were in short supply.
In its early RAF life Collyweston was tied closely to Wittering, acting as a relief field and an overflow base for units moving through the area. Like many satellite fields, its day-to-day rhythm could be quiet, then suddenly busy, depending on weather, movements, and the demands of nearby squadrons. That “on and off” nature is part of why such places are easy to overlook in broad histories, yet indispensable in the lived mechanics of wartime flying.
RAF Collyweston’s name, however, became firmly linked with one of the war’s most unusual RAF organisations: No. 1426 (Enemy Aircraft) Flight, nicknamed the “Rafwaffe”. From March 1943 the Flight was based at Collyweston, bringing with it a strange menagerie of captured enemy aircraft. These machines were repaired, test-flown, painted in RAF markings, and then taken on tours to operational stations so aircrews could study them at first hand. For pilots and gunners who had only ever seen a Messerschmitt or a Ju 88 in a fleeting, violent glimpse, Collyweston offered something rare: the chance to walk around the real thing, peer into cockpits, and watch it fly in controlled conditions.
The airfield’s role as the Rafwaffe’s home made it a place of quiet expertise. Keeping enemy aircraft serviceable was hard graft. Spares were scarce, documentation was often incomplete, and every flight carried the extra risk that comes with unfamiliar systems and ageing airframes. Ground crews at RAF Collyweston had to improvise, learn quickly, and keep machines flying that were never designed to be supported by RAF supply chains. The work was not glamorous, but it was directly linked to survival in the air. Recognition, tactics and a feel for the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses all improved when you could see the aircraft properly, rather than rely on sketches and hearsay.
That unusual work also brought danger. Accidents and losses were part of the story, and the deaths of specialist pilots underline how much depended on a small number of skilled men who could handle these aircraft safely and explain them clearly to others. Collyweston, in that sense, was not a curiosity. It was an operational classroom with real consequences.
By the closing months of the war the need for touring enemy types diminished as the Luftwaffe weakened and Allied forces moved across Europe. Collyweston’s association with 1426 Flight ended as the unit was wound down and responsibilities shifted elsewhere. The airfield itself slipped back into the quieter category that so many satellite stations share, its wartime importance remembered locally and by enthusiasts who know what happened behind the hedges and on the grass.
Today, RAF Collyweston is best understood as a supporting airfield that briefly became something more: the working home of a travelling demonstration unit that took the enemy’s own aircraft and used them as teaching tools. It is a neat reminder that air power was not only about squadrons and battles, but also about the less visible work of learning, testing, and passing on knowledge before the next operation went up.