Originally Posted by
India Four Two
Here's a question to get the thread going again.
Why wasn't RAF Chipmunk called the T1?
Is it somehow related to the fact the Vampire trainer is the T11?
No, the T11 was the next progression in the Vampire family (FB9, NF10, T11)
The Chipmunk was the T10 due to a short lived policy in the Air Ministry to give mark numbers in blocks - the actual reason is not known to me, but another example was the HP Marathon which was given the T11 designator. I've heard it explained as 'military adaptions of civil aircraft' or 'trainers'.
A longer lived variation was using the '20' range for Naval adaptions e.g. Vampire NF20, Sea Venom NF20/21/22, Sea Devon C20, Sea heron