On 16 June 1924 Abel Smith was attached to the Royal Air Force, who were in control of all naval aviation at that time, with the rank of flying officer, to attend No. 1 Flying Training School at Netheravon, Wiltshire.
The sale of his Netheravon estates in Wiltshire to the War Office in 1898 occasioned some acrid criticism concerning the valuation, for which, however, Sir Michael himself was not responsible.
In April 1924, these were replaced by the Fairey Fawn despite the fact that they offered little improvement in performance over the DH.9A, moving with them to RAF Netheravon in May that year.
On the formation of the Royal Air Force on 1 April 1918 it became No. 207 Squadron, RAF, moving back to Netheravon in England for re-equipping with the more advanced version of the O/100, the Handley Page O/400, returning to France in July as part of 54 Wing, continuing to fly night raids against railway targets.
No. 296 Squadron was formed at Ringway Airport near Manchester on 25 January 1942 from the Glider Exercise Unit as an airborne forces unit, equipped with obsolete Hawker Hectors and Hawker Harts, and moved to RAF Netheravon to concentrate on glider training.
The squadron originally formed as the parachute exercise squadron at RAF Ringway on 15 December 1941 and moved to RAF Netheravon on 22 January 1942, then officially becoming No 297 Squadron RAF.
The unit was reformed as 663 Aviation Squadron in October 1969 at Netheravon, Wiltshire.
The unit was reformed as an army air unit called 663 Aviation Squadron in October 1969 at Netheravon, Wiltshire.
No. 89 squadron was formed on 1 September 1917 as a training unit at Netheravon.
The squadron was initially a training unit until moving to Netheravon in March 1918, and re-equipping with the Handley Page O/400 heavy bomber.
:Prototype Falcon III powered aircraft G-EAFO, destroyed in 1925 in a ground collision with a Fairey Fawn at Netheravon.
Oliver Kite popularised to a wide audience the Netheravon style of nymph fishing invented by Frank Sawyer, the Avon riverkeeper and author, to whom he gave full credit in his book "Nymph Fishing in Practice", first published in 1963.
Rob joined the Met Office in 1982 working as a weather observer, spending most of the next eight years observing the weather on the Army Air Corps base of Netheravon on the Salisbury Plain.