RAF North Luffenham was a Royal Air Force

Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...

 station in Rutland

Rutland

Rutland is a landlocked county in central England, bounded on the west and north by Leicestershire, northeast by Lincolnshire and southeast by Peterborough and Northamptonshire....

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, 1940 - 1998. It is near to the villages of Edith Weston

Edith Weston

Edith Weston is a village and civil parish in the county of Rutland in the East Midlands of England. It is on the south-eastern shore of Rutland Water and is home of the main sailing club with a fishing lodge....

 and North Luffenham

North Luffenham

North Luffenham is a village in Rutland, in the East Midlands of England. It lies to the north of the River Chater, east of Uppingham and west of Stamford.Located to the north of the village is St George's Barracks, formerly RAF North Luffenham....

.

The station was built as a training airfield, opening in 1940. It was later taken over by 5 Group

No. 5 Group RAF

No. 5 Group was a Royal Air Force bomber group of the Second World War, led during the latter part by AVM Sir Ralph Cochrane.-History:The Group was formed on 1 September 1937 with headquarters at RAF Mildenhall....

 of RAF Bomber Command

RAF Bomber Command

RAF Bomber Command controlled the RAF's bomber forces from 1936 to 1968. During World War II the command destroyed a significant proportion of Nazi Germany's industries and many German cities, and in the 1960s stood at the peak of its postwar military power with the V bombers and a supplemental...

 as a heavy bomber base, and was expanded by the building of concrete runways later in the war. In 1951, the station was transferred to the Royal Canadian Air Force

Royal Canadian Air Force

The history of the Royal Canadian Air Force begins in 1920, when the air force was created as the Canadian Air Force . In 1924 the CAF was renamed the Royal Canadian Air Force and granted royal sanction by King George V. The RCAF existed as an independent service until 1968...

 to become the temporary home of 1 Fighter Wing, the first Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 NATO base in Europe.