The airfield opened in November 1916 as a Royal Flying Corps training aerodrome with three grassed runways laid out in an equilateral triangle, unusually oriented to the north. The aerodrome remained busy throughout the First World War as a flying training establishment with a large number of aircraft present, flying mostly a motley assortment of
de Havilland DH marques and
Sopwith Camels. The Royal Flying Corps'
No.98 Squadron formed at Harlaxton from elements drawn from the training squadrons. After training at the station and
Old Sarum Airfield the squadron was deployed to France in a day-bombing role flying
DH.9s. , near London, and the north. From 1919, civilian services operated. The station was mothballed and placed on a care and maintenance basis between the wars. Surveyed in 1937 as a possible fighter airfield for the defence of Nottingham, Leicester and Birmingham it was decided that the terrain was unsuitable for tarmac runways. Instead the grass runways were retained and a major building expansion programme was undertaken. In 1942 RAF Harlaxton reopened as a satellite field and relief landing ground for the flying training squadron posted to
RAF Spitalgate, Grantham under the command of
No. 21 (Training) Group RAF. Harlaxton Manor was requisitioned by the War Department and utilised as the station's officers' mess. In the period ahead of the D-day invasion the manor also housed the Headquarters of the Army's
1st Airborne Division during their detailed preparations. As the war came to a close the station continued in a satellite and occasional relief landing ground role but now for the flying training facility at
RAF Cranwell. When flying training at Cranwell switched to jet aircraft in the mid-1950s Harlaxton's grass runways were no longer suitable and the RAF station finally closed in 1957. A
Royal Observer Corps aircraft spotting post was located on the north-east perimeter of the airfield during the Second World War and would have been responsible for initiating air raid warnings to the Grantham area during hostilities. An underground nuclear bunker was built on the same site in the 1960s and was used throughout the
Cold War. The underground post was only abandoned in 1991 when the ROC was stood down and now stands derelict after a fire was started by vandals. ==Harlaxton incidents==