It’s a
flying badge, a brevet is a diploma certificate and the award of a brevet would be the Pilot/Observer certificate that later came with a flying badge. We have been getting this muddled for 100 years - blame the French, it’s our worst habit!
This is what Wg Cdr ‘Jeff’ Jefford, the RAF Historical Society’s leading expert on flying badges, wrote about it:
FLYING BADGE OR BREVET?
From the mid-19th Century onwards the British Army used the term ‘brevet’ to indicate accelerated, but unpaid, promotion in recognition of particularly notable service (as in a captain becoming a brevet major). A brevet – French for a certificate or diploma – was actually the document authorising such an advance.
Its use in the context of aviation arose because pilots were certified by their national branch of the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI). A number of early British aviators learned to fly at French schools where they gained certificates issued by l’Aero Club de France which proclaimed that they ‘été breveté pilote-aviateur’. In 1910 the Royal Aero Club began issuing similar certificates but the British version was bi-lingual in English and French and it became common practice to refer to the document, which all British pilots (including, until mid-1916, all military pilots) were required to obtain, as a brevet and its use soon became commonplace.
He has written a great book that I would recommend to all RAF Aircrew called “Observers and Navigators: And Other Non-pilot Aircrew in the RFC, RNAS and RAF” (ISBN: 9781909808027). He also has published on the subject in the RAF Historical Society Journals which can be found online in PDF format.
QRs get it right by calling them Flying Badges and QR206 is the current highest level document instigating their use:
206. Flying Badges -Wearing of.
(1) Flying badges are divided into two categories, those in current issue, for which aircrew are qualified under the terms of paras J727 and 728 and those no longer issued, for which members of the RAF qualified under regulations in force from time to time. These badges are:
(a) Pilot Current issued: Weapons Systems Officer (WSO) Weapons Systems Operator (WSOp) Fighter Controller (FC) Airborne Technician (AT) The Preliminary Flying Badge (Pilot), UAS personnel only. See para 728.
(b) Previously in issue: Navigator(N) Air Electronics Officer(AE) Air Electronics Operator(AE) Air Engineer(E) Air Signaller(S) Air Loadmaster(LM) Air Observer (O) Air Bomber (B) Wireless Operator (air) (S) Wireless Operator Mechanic (air) (S) Meteorological Air Observer (M) Observer (radio) (RO) Air Gunner (AG) The Preliminary Flying Badge (Pilot) The Preliminary Flying Badge (Navigator) The Preliminary Flying Badge (Signaller) The Preliminary Flying Badge (Engineer) The Preliminary Flying Badge (Gunner)