Royal Air Force Northolt or more simply RAF Northolt (IATA: NHT, ICAO: EGWU) is a Royal Air Force station in South Ruislip, 2 nautical miles (3.7 km; 2.3 mi)[3] from Uxbridge in the London Borough of Hillingdon, western Greater London, England, approximately 6 mi (10 km) north of Heathrow Airport.

Following Louis Blériot's first flight across the English Channel in 1909, the British Army considered the necessity of defending the United Kingdom from a future air attack.

By May 1910, Claude Grahame-White and other aviation pioneers were flying from the flat areas around Ruislip, although they soon sought an aerodrome for London, which was eventually built at Hendon.

18 Squadron was formed in the same month as Northolt and equipped with Bleriot Experimental biplanes, whose slow speed led to heavy losses in combat with the German Fliegertruppe.

The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII and subsequently the Duke of Windsor, made his first flight in a Bristol F.2 Fighter from Northolt on 27 April 1929.

[13]: 58  Polish pilots were taught English at RAF Uxbridge, where they also practised formation flying using tricycles with radios, compasses and speed indicators.

[8]: 52 Thirty Allied airmen including servicemen from Belgium, Canada, Czechoslovakia, New Zealand, Poland and the United Kingdom were killed flying from RAF Northolt during the Battle of Britain, of whom ten were Polish.

Polish Fighter Squadrons based at Northolt in 1942 took part in Operation Jubilee (the raid on Dieppe) on 19 August alongside Nos.

[8]: 71–72 RAF Northolt became home to Prime Minister Winston Churchill's personal aircraft, a modified Douglas C-54 Skymaster, in June 1944.

[8]: 74  Between 20 and 21 July 1944, a converted Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber named "Marco Polo" made the first non-stop intercontinental flight, flying from London to Washington, DC, then returning to Northolt from La Guardia Airport within 18 hours.

[8]: 77 In December 1946, after taking off during a heavy snowstorm, a Douglas Dakota 3 operated by Railway Air Services, flying from Northolt to Glasgow, crashed onto the roof of a house in South Ruislip.

[18] In June 1951, BEA introduced helicopter services to Hay Mills Rotor Station in Birmingham and to London Heathrow, operated by a pair of Westland-Sikorsky S51s.

The RAF maintained a presence throughout its use by civil airlines, making it the longest continuously used airfield in the history of the Royal Air Force.

[8]: 79  En route from Northolt to Dublin, on 10 January 1952, a civil Douglas C-47 Skytrain operated by Aer Lingus and named "St. Kevin" flew into an area of extreme turbulence caused by a mountain wave generated by Snowdon.

As a result, the plane crashed into a peat bog near Llyn Gwynant in Snowdonia, killing all 20 passengers and three crew in the company's first fatal accident.

[8]: 85 On 1 June 1960, an Avro Anson aircraft suffered engine failure soon after take-off from Northolt and crash-landed on top of the nearby Express Dairies plant in South Ruislip.

[22][8]: 89  A Lufthansa Boeing 707 also attempted to land at the station on 28 April 1964 but was dissuaded by a red signal flare fired by personnel from Air Traffic Control.

The Kermit Weeks' Fantasy of Flight Museum in Polk City, Florida, purchased the aircraft whereupon the station received a fibreglass replica of a Spitfire Mk IX as a replacement.

[8]: 102 In August 1996, a Spanish Learjet operated by Mar Aviation overshot runway 25 and collided with a van heading eastward on the A40 Western Avenue; the aircraft was carrying an actress bound for Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire.

[8]: 92 Attention was high again in 2001 when Ronnie Biggs, the seriously ill, fugitive Great Train Robber, was flown from Brazil to the airfield to be arrested by waiting police officers.

[31] Polish pilot Squadron Leader Franciszek Kornicki, who saw wartime service at RAF Northolt, was reunited with the Supermarine Spitfire he had flown at a special ceremony in September 2010.

[33] In October that year, the hangar which had housed Churchill's personal aircraft, the former Squadron Watch office, and the Operations Block were given Grade II listed building status.

[34] The Operations Block was a prototype of the "Dowding system", which facilitated the chain of command's issuance of orders for the interception of enemy aircraft and a scheme used for the first time during the Battle of Britain.

During the Games, the aircraft were deployed to the station to provide air superiority protection for London, in conjunction with other security measures by the British Armed Forces.

[42] The flying time from the station to its daytime base at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel is three minutes shorter than from Denham, which also provides savings for the Air Ambulance charity.

The flight was welcomed by a party including the Prime Minister Liz Truss and the Secretary of State for Defence Ben Wallace.

[52] Following the relocation of the British Forces Post Office and Defence Courier Service from Mill Hill,[53] a new headquarters and main sorting facility were built for their use which opened in November 2007.

[58] In December 2010 it was agreed that the South Hillingdon branch of the St. John Ambulance service would move from its existing base in RAF Uxbridge to new premises at Northolt.

[60] In October 2018, a £23 million contract to resurface Northolt's runway was awarded to Lagan Aviation & Infrastructure as the main contractor, and Mott MacDonald in a support role.

[8]: 101  The mini-series The Winds of War and The Bill and the BBC shows Waking the Dead, Doctor Who and Red Dwarf have all used Northolt to represent various fictional airfields.