MOD Boscombe Down

MOD Boscombe Down (ICAO: EGDM) is the home of a military aircraft testing site, on the south-eastern outskirts of the town of Amesbury, Wiltshire, England. The airfield was built in 1930 as Royal Air Force Boscombe Down, and since 1939, has evaluated aircraft for use by the British Armed Forces. Today, the site has a main runway 3,212 metres (10,538 ft) in length, greater than many other UK airfields and useful for aspects of test flying. It is managed by QinetiQ, the private defence company created as part of the change from the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency in 2001 by the UK Ministry of Defence. The airfield's evaluation centre is currently home to the Fast Jet Test Squadron, Heavy Aircraft Test Squadron, Rotary Wing Test and Evaluation Squadron, Handling Squadron (which drafts Pilot and other manuals for UK aircraft types), and the Empire Test Pilots' School which was created in 1943 to train squadron pilots in test-related flying. In 2026 it also became home to an anti-jamming test facility.