Royal Naval Air Station Lee-on-Solent (HMS Daedalus) was one of
the primary shore airfields of the Fleet Air Arm. First
established as a seaplane base in 1917 during the First World
War, it later became the main training establishment and
administrative centre of the Fleet Air Arm. Situated near Lee-
on-the-Solent in Hampshire, approximately four miles west of
Portsmouth on the coast of the Solent at , the establishment has
now been closed down. Naval aviation began at Lee-on-Solent on
30 July 1917 when the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) opened the
Naval Seaplane Training School as an extension to the seaplane
training station at nearby Calshot. Initially, aircraft had to
be transported from their temporary hangars to the top of the
nearby cliff, then lowered by crane onto a trolley which ran on
rails into the sea. Permanent hangars, workshops, accommodation
and a new double slipway were soon constructed, however. In 1931
the first grass airstrip at Lee was constructed to the west of
the town, Lee-on-Solent be