SYWELL “OUR HOME”
Ultimate Warbird Flights, and sister company Air Leasing, relocated to Sywell Aerodrome in the heart of Northamptonshire in 2015. The location was decided upon due to its outstanding facilities, impeccable maintenance and geographical location within the UK.
Sywell is actually a pre-war aerodrome being established in 1928. Sywell swiftly became very popular with aviators and enthusiasts and held its first annual airshow in 1929.
Sywell’s position and facilities were immediately noticed by the RAF who utilised the established Brooklands Aviation Flying School in the 1930’s, and onwards, for training their pilots.
​
The RAF continued to utilise Sywell during WWII, primarily for training pilots, but also as a repair station for Wellington bombers, with a total of 1,800 repairs being carried out, and a manufacturing plant for the Avro Lancaster, with a total of 260 being built and test flown from the aerodrome. At the end of the war over 2,500 Raf pilots had been trained at Sywell.
After the end of WWII Sywell returned to civil ownership at which time the technical part of the site was utilized and developed for business use. Although the aviation element at Sywell was notably reduced from wartime levels there were still some passenger flights operated to the Channel Islands and a number of light aircraft based there.
In more recent years Sywell has seen major development and restoration of the facilities including the fantastic art deco bar, restaurant and hotel. The most recent additions at Sywell are the “blister” hangars, in which Ultimate Warbird Flight’s are located, which have been specifically designed to look exactly the same as an original WWII blister hangar but with all the benefits of a new building.
​
From a flying perspective it is hard to do better than Sywell! It is one of the few developing small civil aerodrome’s in the UK. In the early 2000’s the owners of Sywell embarked on a major project to install a hard runway and generally upgrade the aerodrome. This programme of upgrades has led to Sywell becoming very popular with large aviation event’s, including the LAA rally.
Geographically Sywell is absolutely central within the UK and has excellent transport links. Despite it’s excellent central position the airspace above Sywell is completely unobstructed and enables our flying to be totally unrestricted by large airports unlike a lot of other airfields.
​
Amenities on the aerodrome include the aforementioned bar, restaurant and Aviator Hotel and also the Pilots Mess café. There is a large parking and viewing area for spectators and visitors and also the Sywell Aviation Museum which is open on weekends and Wednesdays in the summer. Also based at Sywell are the well known Blades Aerobatic team, with whom we offer our unique fly alongside experiences, who regularly practice their display at the aerodrome during the build up to the season.
Getting to Sywell is very easy, with major roads the M1, A14 and A45 encircling the aerodrome. There is also excellent rail links from the south and the north, with the most local stations being Wellingborough and Northampton.
In the locality there is a lot of other things to do, with excellent places to eat other than Sywell’s facilities like the Beckworth Emporium, and stately homes to visit like Althorp House and Lamport hall.