to the flying boats because of their anodised skins. The novel Air Bridge by Hammond Innes is partially set in RAF Gatow at the time of the Berlin Airlift, and is notable for its accurate descriptions of the Station, including corridors and rooms within it. Some of the descriptions were still accurate some 40 years after the book's publication. 1949–1994 After the Berlin Blockade, RAF Gatow served as an airfield for the British Army's Berlin Infantry Brigade, and was prepared to revert to its role as a supply base, if another Berlin Airlift to West Berlin ever became necessary. BEA moved to Tempelhof Airport in 1951, where most of West Berlin's commercial air transport operations were concentrated from then on. Gatow's non-military use after 1950 included several official visits by Queen Elizabeth and other members of the British Royal Family, which frequently took place over the years. The airport also handled trooping flights operated by British independent airlines such as British United Airways, Britannia Airways and Autair/Court Line under contract to the MoD. The RAF Gatow Station Flight used two de Havilland Canada DHC-1 Chipmunk T.10s, one of which is now owned by the Alliiertenmuseum, to maintain and exercise the British legal right under the Potsdam Agreement to use the airspace over both West and East Berlin, as well as the air corridors to and from West Germany to the city. In the 1950s the base was also an important centre for intelligence gathering by Royal Air Force Linguists monitoring on a 24/7 basis Soviet air traffic broadcasts from its bases all over Eastern Europe. These aircraft were also used for reconnaissance missions in co-operation with The British Commander-in-Chief's Mission to the Soviet Forces of Occupation in Germany, commonly known as BRIXMIS. Known from 1956 as Operation Schooner and then Operation Nylon, they were authorised, at the highest level, on an irregular basis to carry out covert photographic reconnaissance flights. All flights had to be notified to the Berlin Air Safety Center (BASC), a quadripartite organisation responsible for authorising all flights in the three Air Corridors and the Berlin Control Zone (BCZ). All the Chipmunk Flight Notification Cards in the BASC were stamped by the Soviets "Safety of Flight Not Guaranteed" due to their interpretation of the 1946 Agreement as excluding flights outside West Berlin. Within the BCZ were many Soviet and East German military airfields and other installations. After