Royal Air Force Stations in Lincolnshire

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RAF Holbeach Range

| Grid reference: TF 45374 326. Operational







RAF Holbeach bombing practice range situated east of the Fosdike Wash (TF 41 34) and Coxes Creek at Gedney Drove End (TF 49 30). It was opened in 1928 and covers an area of roughly 3,875 hectares hectares or 15 square miles; established by Royal Air Force for Practice Camp Sutton Bridge, flying biplanes firing and dropping bombs over the area formally known as "Holbeach Air Gunnery and Bombing Range". Practice Camp Sutton Bridge was later known as RAF Sutton Bridge.
With the closure of Sutton Bridge the range was administered by RAF Marham as an Air Weapons Range within RAF Strike Command. On 1st April 2006 control was transferred to Defence Estates and the range is now administered by Defence Training Estates (East) from their headquarters at West Tofts Camp (STANTA) near Thetford, now renamed Defence Infrastructure Organisation East (DIO East).
DIO are responsible for operational support—building, maintaining and servicing the infrastructure, the RAF are responsible for safe practice on the Range. The Range is administered at a local level by the DIO Training Safety Officer (TSO), who has an office at the Range. RAF air traffic control personnel staff the Range Control Tower supported by civilian range staff outsourced.

The range provides facilities for RAF and other NATO aircraft to practice dropping bombs and firing their cannon. An assortment of range targets, 8 in total, include several retired merchant ships which have been beached on the sands of The Wash for this purpose. Towers parallel to the target line are manned and allow the fall of the weapons to be triangulated.

RAF Holbeach also has facilities for scoring strafing runs. The strafing targets are a number of three-metre square net with an orange bullseye made by weaving plastic strips through the chicken-wire net.

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