page_title: Bicester Airfield
section_title: Today
hierarchical_section_title: Bicester Airfield / Today
caption_attribution_description: English: Bicester Airfield. Home of Windrushers Gliding Club. Formerly an RAF airfield but now rented to the gliding club.
context_page_description: Bicester Aerodrome, formerly RAF Bicester, is an airfield on the outskirts of the English town of Bicester in Oxfordshire. Dating back to 1916, this military airfield is notable as the location of the first flight of the prototype Handley Page Halifax in 1939 and was later the home of No. 71 Maintenance Unit, RAF; the RAF finally left in 2004.
  The airfield consists of 400 acres of well-drained short-mown grass, with three nominal runways of 06/24, 13/31, 18/36, each 1,000 m long. The airfield surface is bumpy in places, due to collapsing field drains, requiring care on the part of pilots operating aircraft in those areas.
context_section_description: The airfield is a substantially unmodified pre-war RAF station with many listed buildings. The brick-built 1934 "Fort" type 1959/34 control tower survives, as do the two C-type and two A-type aircraft hangars.
  During the late 1990s The Welbeck Estate Group/Hodge Group acquired 300 post war and modern Officers and NCO married quarters on the Stratton Fields and The Rowans housing estate.
  In the late 1990s, plans were proposed to develop the airfield for housing and industry, but they were abandoned due to strong local opposition and the historic nature of the site. In 2002, Cherwell District Council designated the aerodrome as a Conservation Area.
   In June 2004, the RAF Gliding and Soaring Association moved to RAF Halton. The airfield became home to both Windrushers Gliding Club (reformed in July 2004) who leased the site from the MOD until 2013, with Oxford University Gliding Club and, for a few years, Cranfield University Gliding Club, as sub-sections within the Windrushers club. The club continued to operate from Bicester along with the Oxford University club, but after the existing lease expired the Club went into hibernation on 30th June 2020, it is now hoping to find another site to fly from. At the same time, the Oxford University group moved to Weston on the Green, rejoining Oxford Gliding Club after over 40 years at Bicester.
  In March 2013 Bicester Airfield was acquired from the MOD by Bicester Heritage Limited with the aim of developing the UK's first business park dedicated to historic motoring and aviation. Bicester Heritage aim to bring together the UK's cottage industry of specialists in order to promote not just the preservation but, specifically, the use of vintage aeroplanes and motor cars.
  One of the companies which located in the park was Chiltern Classic Flight, a company which provides training programs for flying and maintaining classic aircraft, including formation flying. They prepare aircraft for and participate in air shows and fly-pasts, and contribute demonstrations to the annual Youth Aviation Day.
caption: Bicester Airfield, home of Windrushers Gliding Club
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