HMS Fieldfare

An airfield was established on the site in 1922 to support the Royal Navy's Home Fleet, which had one of its main bases nearby at Invergordon. (Before arriving in port, aircraft carriers must fly off their aircraft to a land base: it is difficult or impossible for fixed wing aircraft to operate from a carrier while the ship is at anchor.) Originally, the navy used a site at Delny, near Invergordon, but it could not be enlarged for larger planes. At first, the airfield was known as the Novar base, after the Novar estate which owned the land. At the time naval aviation was in the hands of "The Fleet Air Arm of the RAF" and HMS Fieldfare was serviced from RAF Leuchars. The dimensions of…

Today the site is a large industrial estate with many of the hangars and buildings still in use today, parts of the X-shaped runways can still be seen. The site is split by the A9 trunk road and an oil pipeline company TechnipFMC has built a large Spoolbase and pier incorporating part of the runways as pipe storage racks. Some of the personnel housing is still in use since being sold by the MoD.