Royal Air Force Benson or RAF Benson is a Royal Air Force (RAF) station located at Benson, near Wallingford, in South Oxfordshire, England. It is a front-line station and home to the RAF's fleet of Westland Puma HC2 support helicopters, used primarily for the transportation of troops & equipment. Flying squadrons comprise No. 33 Squadron flying the Puma, No. 22 Squadron which provides operational evaluation and training for all aircraft in Joint Helicopter Command and No. 28 Squadron, which is the combined Puma and Boeing Chinook HC6A training unit. Other units include the Oxford University Air Squadron and No. 6 Air Experience Flight, both flying the Grob Tutor T1 light training aircraft used for student and cadet flying training. The National Police Air Service and the Thames Valley Air Ambulance are also based at the station, both operating Airbus H135 helicopters.
Benson village (left) and RAF Benson (centre and right) from the air
Fairey Battles of No. 12 Operational Training Unit based at RAF Benson during July 1940
A Type F.8 Mark II (20-inch lens) aerial camera being loaded into a Supermarine Spitfire PR.IV at RAF Benson during the Second World War
A RAF Armstrong Whitworth Argosy C.1 of the type based at RAF Benson during the 1960s
Benson is a village and civil parish in South Oxfordshire, England. The 2011 Census gave the parish population as 4,754. It lies about a mile and a half north of Wallingford at the foot of the Chiltern Hills, where a chalk stream, Ewelme Brook, joins the River Thames next to Benson Lock.
St Helen's parish church
Second World War graves of Polish and Czechoslovak airmen in the extension of St Helen's parish churchyard
13 Castle Square, a mid-18th-century house
Benson war memorial