Transform Your Flight Sim Experience
with In-Depth Tracking & Analysis
Track every flight, analyse your performance,
and master your flying skills with My FS Flights
Get 10 flights free every month!
Tracked and analysed flights over miles
Hawarden Airport, also known as Hawarden Aerodrome, lies at Broughton in Flintshire, Wales, just a few miles west-southwest of Chester and close to the English border. It is best known today as the home of the Airbus UK wing factory and the British base for the Airbus Beluga transport aircraft, and it offers a long instrument-equipped runway with a full air traffic service, making it a notable stop for visiting VFR pilots in North Wales.
Hawarden Airport, ICAO code EGNR and IATA code CEG, sits at Broughton in the County of Flintshire, Wales, on the western fringe of the Chester conurbation. The airfield is dominated by the adjacent Airbus UK factory, which produces aircraft wings and is served by the distinctive Airbus Beluga transporter, giving the field a strong industrial aviation character alongside its general aviation and corporate traffic. For a visiting simulator pilot, Hawarden offers a substantial hard runway, radar and tower services, and a rich wartime history as a former RAF fighter and bomber-production airfield.
The airfield is located near Hawarden in Flintshire, Wales, close to the border with England and about 3.5 nautical miles (6.5 km) west-southwest of the city of Chester. It provides an approach, radar and tower service, with a listening squawk published for approach traffic, indicating an active area of controlled or notified airspace around the field that visiting pilots should expect to work with rather than a purely uncontrolled strip.
Hawarden has a single physical runway pair, 04/22, of hard surface construction and lit, equipped with ILS on both directions. Runway 04 is listed at 5,869 feet in length and runway 22 at 5,712 feet, reflecting the different published landing distances for each direction; the runway is substantial enough to accommodate large Airbus transport types as well as the general aviation and corporate traffic based at the field. Field elevation is 23 feet.
Hawarden provides an Approach service on 120.055 MHz, with a listening squawk of 4607, together with a combined Approach/Radar frequency on 130.015 MHz. An ATIS broadcast is available on 125.43 MHz, and the Tower operates on 124.955 MHz. Both runway ends are equipped with ILS, supporting instrument approaches to the field.
The airfield lies immediately west-southwest of Chester, with the city itself serving as a useful general reference point for pilots approaching from the east. The Airbus factory buildings and the long 04/22 runway are prominent features from the air, reflecting the field's role as a major aerospace production site.
The airfield began life in the 1930s as a Relief Landing Ground for nearby RAF Sealand, originally known as Bretton. Construction of an aircraft factory on the site started in 1937, chosen partly because it was considered far enough from Germany to avoid air attack, and the facility opened in 1939 as a shadow factory for Vickers-Armstrongs. During the Second World War the factory produced 5,540 Vickers Wellington bombers and 235 Avro Lancasters, including PA474, one of only two Lancasters still airworthy today and now part of the RAF's Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. The RAF's No. 48 Maintenance Unit formed at Hawarden on 1 September 1939 and operated until 1 July 1957, storing, maintaining and scrapping aircraft including Horsa gliders, Mosquitoes, Halifaxes and Wellingtons. No. 7 Operational Training Unit formed at Hawarden on 15 June 1940 under Wing Commander J. R. Hallings-Pott to train fighter pilots on Spitfires, Hurricanes, Miles Masters and Fairey Battles, flying operational sorties during the Battle of Britain against Luftwaffe raids on Liverpool and on Broughton itself. The unit became No. 57 OTU in November 1940 and later moved to Eshott in 1942, disrupted partly by conflicts with Vickers flight-testing. No. 41 OTU subsequently used the airfield as the RAF's main Army co-operation training unit, flying Hurricanes and Mustangs, before leaving for Chilbolton in March 1945. After the war the factory built aluminium prefabricated bungalows, and the RAF finally left Hawarden on 31 March 1959, after which the site passed to de Havilland and later to Airbus.
Hawarden today is centred on the Airbus UK wing factory at Broughton and is the British home of the Airbus Beluga, which flies oversized aircraft components to Airbus sites such as Toulouse, Hamburg Finkenwerder and Bremen. Handling at the airport is provided under a long-term tenancy by Aviation Park Group, which offers air taxi and charter services, and other operators based at the field have included MerseyFlight Air Training School, North Wales Military Air Services, and the National Police Air Service, which bases a Eurocopter EC135 helicopter there; Williams Aviation has also offered private jet charter from the airport. Published opening hours are Monday to Friday 08:00 to 21:00 and Saturday to Sunday 08:30 to 18:00 local time, though operating hours may vary according to operational requirements.
