X-Nico

26 unusual facts about Royal Air Force


At Mrs. Lippincote's

Julia and the others have joined Roddy, who is an officer in the Royal Air Force.

Caerwent

Between 1967 and 1993 this was used as a storage station for the Royal Air Force and the United States Air Force; since that time it has been used as an army training facility and on occasion as a filming location for large scale productions such as Captain America: The First Avenger.

Cecil Lambert

In 1919 Lambert was seconded to the recently established Royal Air Force where he served as Director of Personnel.

Dawee Chullasapya

The young officer was soon enrolled in bombing and training courses with the RAF and USAAF, and returned two years later to become Commanding Officer of the 3rd Fighter Squadron, whose base was at Don Muang.

De Havilland Spectre

It was one element of the intended mixed powerplant for combination rocket-jet interceptor aircraft for the Royal Air Force, such as the Saunders-Roe SR.53.

De Winton, Alberta

During the Second World War, a Royal Air Force pilot training school was located at the Royal Canadian Air Force air station at De Winton (today's De Winton/South Calgary Airport).

Defence College of Communications and Information Systems

The College consists of a headquarters based at Blandford Camp in Dorset, the Royal Navy CIS Training Unit at HMS Collingwood, Fareham, Hampshire, The Royal School of Signals at Blandford Camp and the Royal Air Force Number 1 Radio School, collocated with the headquarters of the Defence College of Aeronautical Engineering at Cosford, of which the Aerial Erector School at RAF Digby is a part.

Edward Michael S.

After serving in the Royal Air Force during World War II, he began musical studies at the Guildhall School of Music where he learned composition.

Imperial Gift

Following the First World War, the Royal Air Force (RAF) had large stocks of surplus aircraft, estimated at over 20,000 aircraft, many still in production at the end of the war.

John Bussey

Group Captain John Bussey, OBE (1895-1979) was in charge of Reconnassance for the British Royal Air Force during WWII.

Luqa

The Royal Air Force established a base with runways which later on evolved as a civilian airport.

Morven, Caithness

Prince George, Duke of Kent, brother of King George, died in an air crash on a hillside near Morven on 25 August 1942 while serving in the Royal Air Force.

Norman Tunna

Ignoring the bombing Tunna continued his work, marshalling a goods train where the main freight being carried was high explosive bombs for use by the Royal Air Force.

Operation Balak

A former Royal Air Force pilot and gentile named Gordon Levett, who served in World War II, volunteered for the Israel Machal (the overseas volunteer unit) early in 1948 along with a few Jewish pilots from Britain.

Operation Horev

On the same day the Israeli Air Force shot down five RAF Spitfires on patrol in the area, killing two pilots and taking two more prisoner.

R. J. Hollingdale

He was called up to the Royal Air Force at a young age in the late 1940s, as part of his National Service, for two years before returning to journalism.

RAF Boddington

RAF Boddington was a non-flying Royal Air Force station in Boddington, Gloucestershire, and was the former home of 9 Signals Unit.

RAF Hospital Wegberg

The former Royal Air Force Hospital Wegberg, commonly abbreviated to RAF(H) Wegberg, was a Royal Air Force military hospital located in Wegberg, near the city of Mönchengladbach, in Germany.

RAF Nordhorn

The range is used by the British Royal Air Force (RAF), the German Luftwaffe, and other NATO air forces and aviation arms of their other branches (such as the Army Air Corps, and the Fleet Air Arm).

Ray Ellington

Ellington was called up in May 1940 when he joined the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a physical training instructor where he served throughout the war.

The Great Escape II: The Untold Story

The second half of the film is a highly fictionalized account of the post-war investigation into the murders of fifty of the escapees by the Gestapo, conducted by three Americans (whereas in fact it was conducted by the Royal Air Force Special Investigation Branch).

Turbo-Union RB199

The RB199 has amassed over 5 million flight hours since entering service with the Royal Air Force, Luftwaffe, German Navy, Italian Air Force and Royal Saudi Air Force.

Union Airways

Union Airways were founded by Major Allister Miller, a World War I flying ace, who had recruited some 2000 South Africans for service in the Royal Air Force.

Whaleback

The term "whaleback" has also been applied to a type of high speed launch first designed for the Royal Air Force during World War II, and to certain smaller rescue and research vessels especially in Europe that, like the Great Lakes vessels, have hulls that curve over to meet the deck.

Windsor knot

The Windsor knot is the only tie knot that is to be used by all personnel in the Royal Air Force and the Royal Air Force Cadets (ATC and CCF(RAF)) in the UK when wearing their black tie while in uniform.

Worm's Eye View

Their bitter landlady is not pleased by five fighters from the Royal Air Force who are staying there and she re-directs unjustly, her frustrations against the family.


120 Squadron Royal Netherlands Air Force

The British-led South East Asia Command, which was responsible for the western NEI at the time, ordered that the squadron proceed to Surabaya where it relieved Royal Air Force P-47 Thunderbolts.

1974 Norfolk mid-air collision

The 1974 Norfolk mid-air collision happened on the 9 August 1974 at Fordham Fen, Norfolk, England when a Royal Air Force McDonnell-Douglas Phantom FGR2 of 41 Squadron collided with a Piper Pawnee crop spraying aircraft.

Africa Star

The sand of the desert is represented by pale buff, the Royal Navy (and Merchant Navy), British Army, and Royal Air Force are represented by stripes of dark blue, red, and light blue respectively.

Angolan War of Independence

The aircraft were flown to Africa by John Richard Hawke – reportedly a former Royal Air Force-pilot – who on the start of one of the flights to Angola flew so low over the White House, that the United States Air Force forced him to land and he was arrested.

Arctic Star

Fleet Air Arm personnel, not qualified by sea service, may qualify under the criteria applicable to Royal Air Force personnel.

Atomic Weapons Establishment

The airfield was constructed in World War II and had been used by the Royal Air Force and the United States Army's Eighth and Ninth Air Force as a troop carrier (C‑47) group base, and was assigned USAAF station No 467.

Attack on Panzer Group West's headquarters at La Caine

The Attack on Panzer Group West's headquarters at La Caine in Normandy was a successful airstrike by the RAF's Second Tactical Air Force.

Barlow Trail

Barlow Trail is run roughly where the fifth meridian lies in the Dominion Land Survey; the road is named for Noel Barlow, a Calgarian who served as the ground crewman to Douglas Bader, a Royal Air Force flying ace in World War II.

Barry Cole

Apart from two years (1970–1972) as Northern Arts Fellow in Literature at the universities of Durham and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and two years (1955–1957) in the RAF as a National Serviceman, he worked until 1995 as an editor at the Central Office of Information, and is now a freelance editor and writer.

Bodø Airport

On May 26, 1940 three Royal Air Force Gloster Gladiators, led by Rhodesian-born Flight Lieutenant Caesar Hull, landed and made the first airborne defence for the city.

Castle Neroche

On 22 September 1945, a Royal Air Force Consolidated B-24 Liberator crashed into a field after hitting trees on Blackdown Hills between the castle and Buckland St Mary, killing all 27 people on board.

Conchita Marquita Lolita Pepita Rosita Juanita Lopez

Conchita Marquita Lolita Pepita Rosita Juanita Lopez is a 1942 novelty song first recorded by the Glenn Miller Orchestra and later by Bing Crosby with the Vic Schoen Orchestra, Tommy Tucker and his Orchestra and the Royal Air Force Dance Orchestra.

Coole Pilate

The parish had a platoon in the Home Guard during the Second World War, which guarded the canal bridges and reinforced the RAF at the nearby Hack Green Radar Station.

David J. Farrar

It being the eve of World War II, he expected to go into the Royal Air Force, having been an active member of the University Air Squadron, but was assigned to the aircraft industry in the Bristol Aeroplane Company, where he specialised initially in structural design.

Eirjet

29 March 2006 - Eirjet issued an apology after a flight it operated from Liverpool John Lennon Airport to City of Derry Airport on behalf of Ryanair landed at the wrong airfield, touching down at Ballykelly Airfield, a former RAF base and more recently an Army base some 4 miles away from its intended destination.

First Yale Unit

Lt. David Ingalls, a member of the First Yale Unit, flying a Sopwith Camel with the RAF, was the first US naval aviator to become an ace.

Frank Lilley

On 9 November 1959, Lilley was one of four Scottish MPs on a British European Airways Viscount which was involved in a near miss with a Royal Air Force Pembroke transport.

Geoffrey Tindal-Carill-Worsley

Air Cdre Geoffrey Nicolas Ernest Tindal-Carill-Worsley CB CBE RAF (8 June 1908 - 28 April 1996) was a Royal Air Force officer.

Harlescott

There was once a military supply depot here, RAF Harlescott, but this has closed and the nearest RAF base is now a few miles away at Shawbury.

Heinz Strüning

At about 6 pm on the evening of 24 December 1944 his Messerschmitt Bf 110 G-4 (Werknummer 740 162—factory number) G9+CT was shot down by 10-kill ace F/L R.D. Doleman and F/L D.C. Bunch of No. 157 Squadron RAF in a Royal Air Force Mosquito Intruder while he tried to attack a Lancaster bomber over Cologne.

Imagery intelligence

In 1939 Sidney Cotton and Flying Officer Maurice Longbottom of the RAF suggested that airborne reconnaissance may be a task better suited to fast, small aircraft which would use their speed and high service ceiling to avoid detection and interception.

Imjin Barracks

RAF Innsworth was a non flying Royal Air Force station, on the north side of the city of Gloucester, located within the parish of Innsworth.

Invergordon railway station

On 26 November 1944, RAF Short Sunderland DD851 of the 4th Operational Training Unit departed Cromarty Firth, RAF Station Alness on an anti-submarine patrol of the North Sea off the coast of Scotland.

Josef Priller

He made his first victory claims in May 1940 over Dunkirk versus Royal Air Force (RAF) fighters.

Killadeas

Near Killadeas, on Lower Lough Erne, is Gublusk Bay, a Royal Air Force base for Short Sunderland and PBY Catalina flying boats during World War II.

Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg

On 10 June 1944, Geyr was wounded when Royal Air Force aircraft attacked his newly established headquarters at La Caine in Normandy.

Louis Tancred

Louis Jnr instead joined the Royal Air Force and, while working as a flight instructor, was killed aged 34 in a plane crash at the Isle of Axholme, Lincolnshire.

Max Wielen

Wielen is significant in that he was directly implicated in the Stalag Luft III murders, in which members of the RAF who were involved in the "Great Escape" were killed.

Naval Air Technical Training Center Ward Island

The Royal Air Force had recently started Training School #31 for this same purpose in Clinton, Ontario, and a small group of U.S. naval officers was sent there in mid-1941 to gather information for a similar school to be located on the campus of the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland.

Nicholas Byron Cavadias

Specializing in the application of electronics to aviation, Cavadias began his career at TAE Greek National Airlines in 1946 as a radio engineer before becoming a ground radar specialist with the Royal Air Force in 1953.

Northwest African Air Forces

Northwest African Coastal Air Force (NACAF), initially under (acting commander) Group Captain G. G. Barrett and, soon afterwards, Air Vice-Marshal Hugh Lloyd: comprised No. 201 (Naval Co-operation) Group's anti-shipping coastal force (10 squadrons: Greek, Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), South African Air Force (SAAF) and Royal Air Force (RAF); and

Operation Ambassador

At 17:45 the raiding force embarked upon the two destroyers, Scimitar and Saladin and accompanied by six Royal Air Force air-sea rescue launches, who would take them from the destroyers to the landing beaches, they set out for the Guernsey.

PULHHEEMS

PULHHEEMS is tri-service, which is to say that it is used by the British Army, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force.

RAF Dunholme Lodge

Royal Air Force Station Dunholme Lodge or more simply RAF Dunholme Lodge was a Royal Air Force station located between the parishes of Welton and Dunholme in Lincolnshire, England.

RAF Rufforth

Royal Air Force Station Rufforth or RAF Rufforth is a former Royal Air Force station located near Rufforth in North Yorkshire, England.

RAF Shellingford

RAF Shellingford was a Royal Air Force station located approximately 4 miles east of the town of Faringdon in Oxfordshire.

RAF Sutton Bridge

Royal Air Force station Sutton Bridge or more simply RAF Sutton Bridge is a former Royal Air Force station found next to the village of Sutton Bridge in the south-east of Lincolnshire.

Richard Hough

After leaving school, he joined the RAF (Royal Air Force) at the beginning of World War II and received his initial flight training at an airfield not far from Hollywood.

Siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem

On May 10, the thirteen men left the church, and were greeted by Sherard Cowper-Coles, the British Ambassador to Israel, thirty members of the Royal Military Police, and a Royal Air Force doctor.

Sir Noël Bowater, 2nd Baronet

Anne Patricia Bowater (b. 3 July 1925), educated at Westonbirt School, married on 21 April 1954 Group Captain Randolph Stuart Mills, who was decorated with the award of the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) and gained the rank of Group Captain in the service of the Royal Air Force, son of Captain Randolph Henry Mills, of Northampton, Northamptonshire, and had issue

Steve Wheeler

His father was in the Royal Air Force, and due to constant travelling, Wheeler attended a number of schools across Europe, including St George's School in Gibraltar; Sandwick School in the Shetland Isles, Scotland; Wellington Grammar School in Telford, England; and the AFCENT International School in Brunssum, the Netherlands.

Theodore McEvoy

Air Chief Marshal Sir Theodore Neuman McEvoy KCB CBE RAF (21 November 1904 – 19 September 1991) was a senior Royal Air Force officer during World War II who held high command in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Waterbeach

A Royal Air Force station, RAF Waterbeach, was built on the northern edge of the village in 1940, operating under RAF Bomber Command.

William Carlton Woods

During World War I, he served in the Canadian Signal Corps and as a pilot in the Royal Air Force.