Warton is a village on the Fylde peninsula in Lancashire, England, approximately six miles from Preston and eight from Blackpool. The village is located on the banks of the River Ribble, close to its entry into the Irish Sea. It is best known for its airfield, BAE Warton.

BAE Warton

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The airfield was first operated as an air depot of the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II, as thousands of aircraft were processed on their way to active service in Britain, North Africa, the Mediterranean and mainland Europe.

Today the airfield is a major manufacturing and testing facility of BAE Systems (and its predecessor companies; British Aerospace, British Aircraft Corporation and English Electric). As such the airfield has been the testing ground for several front line aircraft including the Canberra, the Lightning, the Panavia Tornado and BAE Hawk.

The final new build Tornado left Warton in 1998, a GR.1 for Saudi Arabia. Following this the main assembly hall was re-fitted as the final assembly site of the Eurofighter Typhoon. BAE estimate that modern manufacturing techniques will allow the 30 week assembly time for a Tornado to be reduced to 16 weeks for the Typhoon.

BAE Warton has operated as the base for all British development aircraft (DA) and Instrumented Production Aircraft (IPA). Warton has been home to the initial Typhoon squadrons of the Royal Air Force, No. 17 Squadron and No. 29 Squadron. This was under the so called "Case White" programme where BAE assumes more responsibility for training and support of the new aircraft than previous RAF types which were introduced under a more "in house" system. BAE insist that this allows inevitable problems with any new aircraft to be quickly ironed out by BAE personnel on site. BAE plans to offer this on site service to any export customers.

BAE Warton is also the home to the Nimrod MRA4 Maritime Reconnaissance and Attack aircraft. Three development aircraft are currently (2006) going through trials and evaluation. Eventually the aircraft will be based at RAF Kinloss in Moray.

Villages in Lancashire | BAE Systems