RAF Henlow
It houses the RAF Centre of Aerospace Medicine and the Joint Arms Control Implementation Group (JACIG), and was home to the Signals Museum, which closed in June 2024.[5] Originally a repair depot for aircraft from the Western Front, the Station officially opened on 18 May 1918 when Lt Col Robert Francis Stapleton-Cotton arrived with a party of 40 airmen from Farnborough.Parachute testing was undertaken with Vimy aircraft and parachutists hanging off the wings and allowing the chute to deploy and enable them to drift back to the ground.During Operation Quickforce in 1941, 100 fitters from the base were deployed onto carriers which were shipping Hurricane fighters to Malta.[17] The empty packing crates that the Hurricane aircraft were shipped in were used to make the original control tower (which has now been replaced by a more modern two-storey Portakabin type).[23] In December 2011, RAF Henlow along with 14 other Ministry of Defence sites in the United Kingdom were designated as being dangerously radioactive.[32] On 6 September 2016, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) announced the planned closure of RAF Henlow, with a disposal date of 2020.