Lat/Long50 46 53N/01 35 23W.
114 feet ASL.
1 mile south of Sway village.

RUNWAYS:grass LDA/TORA unknown but probably about 2000 ft. maximum.

SWAY Emergency Landing Ground The Emergency Landing Ground at Sway was established in the summer of 1940 and used almost exclusively by aircraft from the Special Duties Flight based at Christchurch. Facilities were somewhere between minimal and non-existent.The aircraft were flown into Sway for overnight stays to protect them from possible damage or destruction if Christchurch airfield was attacked by enemy aircraft.The enemy's answer to this was ,not surprisingly,to attack Sway instead,which they did on several occasions.The whole idea was abandoned in the late summer of 1941 and the site returned to farmland .However,70 years on the cleared area used for the airfield can still be discerned in the photo below . Back to Main List