RAF Shawbury AM&SU - An Aladdin’s Cave Of Aviation

Following the press coverage in early 2010 of Prince William graduating from Shawbury, most people are aware that through the based Defence Helicopter School, Shawbury provides basic rotary training to pilots of all three services. What most people don't realise is that this Shropshire base is also home to a large number of other aircraft.

Operated by FB Heliservices on behalf of the RAF, the Aircraft Maintenance & Storage Unit is also located at Shawbury. To the casual onlooker many of the hangars scattered around the airfield look unused, but in truth these hangars provide dehumidified environments for extended storage of aircraft.

Generally aircarft come to Shawbury for storage to either be used as a spares source for other airframes, to simply be rotated with other operational aircraft to spread the hours across the fleet or they have been withdrawn from use and are being held pending stripping, scrapping or onward sale. The levels of storage vary significantly across the airframes with some requiring a lot of work to return them to the air, and others 'almost ready to go'.

Recently I was fortunate to have a visit to RAF Shawbury, which included a look at the Aircraft Storage and Maintenance Unit, the following are a few images from this Aladdin's Cave Of Aviation.