It was located near the village of Thurleigh, north of the town of Bedford in England and was the site of aircraft experimental development work.

[1] The airfield was decommissioned in February 1994[2] after a lengthy study determined that flight operations should be centralised at Boscombe Down in Wiltshire.

Due to the cost and impracticality of relocating the Advanced Flight Simulator system the site retains some of its development work (under the banner of QinetiQ from mid-2001 onwards).

[needs update] The airfield was closed officially in March 1994 and sold in 1996[2] with the RAE having become the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA).

The VST was converted in 2005 by Bodyflight to be the first indoor skydiving wind tunnel in the UK, and at 16.4 ft in diameter remains the largest.