History
Opened in 1942 the base was an air depot for the United States Army Air Forces, as such thousands of aircraft were processed on their way to active service in Britain, North Africa, the Mediterranean and mainland Europe.
Langford Lodge was a target in Operation Grün (Ireland), a second front to Operation Sea Lion, which was the planned Nazi invasion of Britain. German paratroopers were to capture Langford Lodge, Aldergrove and Nutts Corner while RAF Long Kesh, Lisburn was to be destroyed.
Some of the wartime airfield facilities used to house the Ulster Aviation Society's Heritage Centre. Exhibits included a Blackburn Buccaneer, a Hawker Sea Hawk and a Westland Wessex. The Society has now moved out and is finding a new home for the collection.
Notably, on 2 March 1989 a Dan Air BAe 748, bound for Belfast International Airport, mistakenly landed at Langford Lodge.
Read more about this topic: RAF Langford Lodge
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“A man will not need to study history to find out what is best for his own culture.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Modern Western thought will pass into history and be incorporated in it, will have its influence and its place, just as our body will pass into the composition of grass, of sheep, of cutlets, and of men. We do not like that kind of immortality, but what is to be done about it?”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)