http://www.raf.mod.uk/rafshawbury/aboutus/history.cfm
Recognizing the need to be in the forefront of technology in navigation techniques, the school’s remit was extended to “consider navigation as a science and to carry out research into the problems of world-wide navigation”. This involved a series of long-distance navigation flights, the first and most famous of which was a record-breaking flight made from RAF Shawbury on 21 October 1944 when ‘Aries ‘, a Lancaster bomber, under the command of Wing Commander D C McKinley, took off on the first round-the-world trip by a British aircraft. The purpose of the flight was to establish a practical liaison between the Empire Air Navigation School ( the CNS having been renamed while Aries was away) and operational units under the control of the Royal Australian and Royal New Zealand Air Forces. The following year Aries underwent significant modification in preparation for important research flights, in May 1945, to the geographic and magnetic North Poles. On 31 July 1949, the school’s title reverted to the CNS, but only for a short while as the station was about to take on another important training role.
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That’s all I could find on Aries – anybody ?
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