Eastbourne Aviation Company

The Admiralty had taken an interest in 1913 having leased part of the airfield and helped fund development of various facilities. With the outbreak of war, the site was taken over by the Royal Naval Air Service and subsequently expanded by acquiring neighbouring land. The site served as the Naval Flying School between August 1914 and November 1916, and later between May 1917 and April 1918 to undertake initial flying training.

Aircraft based at the school were initially of a variety of types, however, this was not seen as the ideal training environment and eventually, aircraft was rationalised where the airframes by Maurice Farman and the Curtiss Jenny could be found at the school.

During the First World War aspiring pilots from all over the Commonwealth came to train here. A young trainee Dan Minchin learned to fly a Bristol Boxkite at this aerodrome and in 1927 attempted to cross the Atlantic in a Fokker V11A monoplane named St Raphael. Lieut Colonel Minchin and two colleagues were lost when the aircraft failed to reach Ottawa, Canada. A plaque on the wall below the 'RAF' window of Eastbourne College in Blackwater Road commemorates the loss of this 'Old Eastbournian'.