Waddington opened for the Royal Flying Corps on 13 November 1916, when Nos. 47 and 48 Training Squadrons arrived with Avro 504s, BE2s, Shorthorns and other training types. The local heritage trail records up to forty crashes a month in those early days. The aerodrome closed after the First World War — the RAF gives 1920, another local history 1919 — and reopened in 1926 for No. 503 (County of Lincoln) Squadron of the Special Reserve.

The expansion of the 1930s turned it into a bomber station with five C-type hangars. No. 44 Squadron arrived in June 1937 and stayed until May 1943. Its Hampdens and those of No. 50 Squadron went into action on the day Britain declared war in 1939, against German naval targets at Kiel, and then flew No. 5 Group’s early raids on aircraft factories, storage depots and oil refineries. In November 1940 No. 207 Squadron re-formed at Waddington to receive the RAF’s first Manchester bombers.

The four-engined Lancaster came to Waddington first. Three were delivered to No. 44 Squadron on Christmas Eve 1941. By then the squadron had been renamed No. 44 (Rhodesia) Squadron, in honour of the Rhodesians who made up about a quarter of its air and ground crews. On the night of 3/4 March 1942 it flew the Lancaster’s first operational sortie, laying mines in the Heligoland Bight. The RAF Museum records that No. 44 went on to suffer the third-highest casualty rate of any RAF squadron in the war.

Six weeks later the squadron flew the Augsburg raid, in which it lost five of its six crews. From late 1943 Waddington was largely Australian. No. 467 Squadron RAAF arrived on 13 November 1943, and No. 463 Squadron RAAF formed from its C Flight on 25 November. Both flew Lancasters from Waddington until the summer of 1945, when No. 467 left in June and No. 463 in July.

In late 1953 Waddington closed so that its runway could be extended to 9,000 feet for the V-bombers. In May 1957 No. 83 Squadron became the first RAF squadron to receive the Avro Vulcan, and by August 1961 there were three Vulcan squadrons operational at the station. Nos. 44, 50 and 101 Squadrons became the Waddington Wing, part of Britain’s airborne nuclear deterrent. No. 44 flew Vulcans from Waddington from August 1960 until December 1982.

The Vulcan years had their losses. On 24 October 1958 Vulcan XA908 of No. 83 Squadron was on a “Western Ranger” training flight from Waddington to the US Air Force base at Lincoln, Nebraska, when it suffered a total electrical failure and crashed into a residential district of Detroit. The Secretary of State for Air told the Commons that the crew of five and the crew chief were all killed.

No. 50 Squadron, the last operational Vulcan squadron, disbanded at Waddington in March 1984, ending 27 years of Vulcans at the station. The type flew on here for another decade with the Vulcan Display Flight. XH558 took over display duties in May 1985 and flew its last RAF display at Cranfield on 20 September 1992, and the flight disbanded in 1993.

When Argentina seized the Falklands in April 1982, Waddington provided the bombers for Operation Black Buck. Three Vulcans, XM597, XM598 and XM607, were prepared for raids from Wideawake airfield on Ascension Island, drawn from the Waddington Wing’s Nos. 44, 50 and 101 Squadrons. On the first raid Withers’ crew came from No. 101 Squadron but flew XM607, a No. 44 Squadron aircraft. Flight Lieutenant Martin Withers later recalled that his crew had been told only three weeks earlier that they would be involved in the South Atlantic.

XM607 took off from Ascension at about 11pm on 30 April. The RAF says it took 11 Victor tankers and 15 fuel transfers to get the bomber within range of Stanley. The tanker plan went wrong on the way south and left the Vulcan short of fuel. Withers climbed to 10,000 feet for the bombing run and released 21 1,000lb bombs, one of which cratered the centre of the runway. The round trip was almost 6,600 nautical miles and lasted about 16 hours. Withers received the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Seven Black Buck missions were planned and five were completed. XM607 flew the first, the second (under Squadron Leader John Reeve) and the last on 12 June. XM597, flown by Squadron Leader Neil McDougall, attacked Argentine radars with Shrike missiles. How much the raids achieved is still argued. The runway remained usable by transport aircraft, while Air Marshal Sir John Curtiss held that the raids sent a message “clearly understood in Argentina”. XM607 retired in December 1982 and became Waddington’s gate guardian in January 1983.

In 1991 No. 8 Squadron brought the Boeing E-3D Sentry to Waddington, and the station became the home of British airborne early warning for three decades. The RAF bought seven aircraft. Sentry crews flew over Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, patrolled the Caribbean against drug smugglers and covered major sporting events. The RAF says that during Operation Iraqi Freedom the Sentry fleet logged more flying hours in Iraqi airspace than all other RAF aircraft combined.

By the end, only three of the seven E-3Ds were still flying. Their airframes needed heavy maintenance, and unlike other nations’ E-3s their electronics had never had a major upgrade. The last operational sortie was flown from RAF Akrotiri over Iraq on 30 July 2021. ZH101 landed back at Waddington on 4 August to a water salute, and the Earl of Wessex attended the retirement parade on 30 September 2021. The United States bought ZH104 for conversion into an E-6B Mercury training aircraft.

Five E-7 Wedgetails had been ordered in 2019 to replace the Sentry. After the 2021 Integrated Review the order was cut to three, a 40 per cent smaller fleet for a saving of about 12 per cent, which the Defence Committee called “an absolute folly”. In the meantime Britain relied on NATO’s airborne early warning force. Service entry had been planned for 2023, but the first RAF Wedgetail, WT001, did not reach RAF Lossiemouth until 21 May 2026, and it was still in test and evaluation there. No. 8 Squadron moved to Lossiemouth to fly it.

No. 51 Squadron flew the Nimrod R1 from 1974. Its replacement, the RC-135W Rivet Joint, was bought under Project Airseeker for a budget of £634 million for three aircraft. Before the handover, British crews flew more than 32,000 hours and 1,800 sorties with the US Air Force’s 55th Wing. The first RC-135W arrived in November 2013, ahead of schedule, and the third on 7 June 2017. The RAF gives an out-of-service date of 2035; UK Defence Journal reported 2045 in 2017.

The Shadow R1, based on the Beechcraft King Air 350, began as an urgent operational requirement, with four aircraft delivered in 2009. No. 5 (AC) Squadron’s Shadow Flight became No. 14 Squadron; the RAF’s Shadow page dates this to 2011, while the squadron’s own page gives 2016. In November 2021 Raytheon UK won a £110 million contract to enlarge the fleet from six aircraft to eight and upgrade it to the Mk2 standard.

In 2012 No. XIII Squadron stood up at Waddington as the first UK-based Reaper squadron. It flew its first operational mission from Lincolnshire in April 2013; until then, British Reaper crews had worked from Creech Air Force Base in Nevada. The aircraft flew over Afghanistan and then over Iraq and Syria on Operation Shader, controlled from ground stations in Lincolnshire. After 18 years in RAF service and more than 173,000 flying hours, the Reaper was retired; the squadron’s page gives 30 September 2025, and the RAF announced its final flight on 3 October 2025.

The first Protector RG1, the RAF’s version of the MQ-9B, arrived in September 2023 and flew circuits of Waddington on 17 November 2023. No. 31 Squadron re-formed on 11 October 2023 as the first UK-based Protector squadron. Protector entered service on 16 June 2025 as the first remotely piloted aircraft cleared to fly in UK national airspace, and 16 are planned. The RAF puts the new hangar, support buildings and crew accommodation at £94 million; a 2018 estimate was £93 million.

The Waddington International Air Show began in 1995, when the show moved from RAF Finningley, which closed that year. It was held at the end of June or the start of July and regularly drew more than 140,000 visitors. The runway rebuild ruled out a show in 2015. On 28 September 2015 the RAF announced that there would be no more shows at Waddington because of security threats and operational risks. Reports linked those concerns to the station’s role as the Reaper base.

The Red Arrows arrived seven years later. In May 2020 the RAF announced that more than 30 alternative sites had been assessed after RAF Scampton was earmarked for closure. An Operational Safety Assessment found Waddington “the only suitable alternative to RAF Scampton”. In the week of 13 October 2022 the 146-strong team moved in with 24 tonnes of equipment.

The team had flown from Lincolnshire since 1983, at Scampton except for a spell at RAF College Cranwell from 1995 to 2000. At Waddington it started at initial operating capability, with the hangar and headquarters still to be renovated. Since 2023 the Red Arrows have come under the Display Air Wing. Its headquarters and the Hawk T1 continuing airworthiness organisation are at Waddington, while the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight stays at RAF Coningsby.