100th aniversary of the Royal Air Force today
 

Raised in the House of Commons today, that today is the actual 100th aniversary of the RAF, in that the Act of Parliament founding the service was presented to the House and was voted through unopposed.

The Royal Air Force as we know came into physical existance on the 1st April 1918.

Those serving past and present happy birthday and those serving at home and on operations stay safe.

Hand Salute!

What a tremendous history the RAF has...due to those who have served and those who continue to carry on the traditions of service.

Happy birthday and roll on the 200th when the by then 200 remaining RAF personnel can celebrate in style.

Nutloose
 

Post #3. Well done.

BV

Happy Technical/Administrative Birthday to us ... but I'll wait until 1 April 2018, if that's OK.


And a Happy 13,000th to NutLoose ;)

Does he get a cake too?

Apparently, we are going to "commemorate, celebrate, and inspire." In these days of bomb and go home capability, I wonder what there is to inspire?

Doesn’t quite work that way. As the joke goes...

Worker knocks on boss’s door on Monday and says, “boss can I have tomorrow off?”.

“Why?”, asks the boss. “Because my wife is going to have a baby”, he replies.

“Certainly!”, the boss replies, and off the man goes with a smile on his face.

Wednesday the boss goes round to the workers desk and finds him looking tired but happy.

“Well?”, he asks the worker. “What?”, responds the worker.

“The baby”, the boss replies testily, “boy or girl?”

“Don’t be silly”, the worker replies, “we won’t know that for another 9 months”......

Does anyone know what celebrations are being organised for next year?

I still think 1st April is a more appropriate date, all things considered !

It is the 1st April 1918. Ignore political dates that today's HoC babies would prefer to choose :ugh:

Salute!

A group that I was honored to associate with for an aviation career, including one instructor and another exchange pilot in my fighter squad and all the staff folks later in my life.

"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few"

What a tribute.

So from a colonist, I offer my old flight's toast as we down some Jermiah Weed. It comes from a British toast with our own modification.

"So hold your goblets steady, for we come from a brotherhood that flies,
Here's a toast to the dead already, and a low fast pass for the next man that dies"

Gums sends...

No Act or Parliament would have meant no Royal Air Force, we’d have all been wearing brown for the past or nearly 100 years.

air pig

Regardless. The formal anniversary of the foundation of the RAF was 1 Apr 1918; its anniversary, accepted as such in perpetuity. As will be well celebrated next year. As you well know.

When I walked into the pub tonight, people said that I must be celebrating the 'anniversary'. Sadly, they had been 'duped' by nouveau politicians in the HoC.

Let's not rearrange history.

Not having a copy of the Act to hand, I can't be sure, but I believe it set out the mechanism by which an Air Force would be formed - i.e. by an Order in Council. A draft Order had been prepared by 13 December 1917.

If Jan Smuts' report was effectively the conception of an independent Air Force, the Air Force Act might be regarded as the ante-natal class preparing for its birth on 1 April.

It took me a long time to realise that the choice of 1 April may represent the start of the Civil Service's financial year, and thus a new budget line.

Not true. Half of you would have been Dark Blue...

From the raf.mod.uk website

Fret ye not, there is plenty planned for the ‘proper’ anniversary year. As the weather is not likely to be terribly good on 1 April, the main event is on 10 July - the first day of the Battle of Britain. Together with a special RIAT it should make a decent centrepiece. More events listed at the link, and the whole thing is meant to be wrapped up by early autumn to allow a respectful gap between our celebrations and the marking of 100 years since the Armistice.

As for tonight: there is a Parliamentary reception being held in honour of the RAF; in the middle of a difficult review anything that raises the service’s profile at Westminster must be welcomed!

newt asked Perhaps a Typhoon through Tower Bridge?

I was on my Flying Scholarship when Al Pollock did it on the occasion of the 50th anniversary...:ok:

Some of us were far more adjacent to him!

The reason why we wear/wore blue has got bugger all to to do with the colour of the sky.

HMG was in possession of a huge amount of blue serge which had been made for the Czar's Guard. It couldn't be delivered due to local difficulties at the time, despite having been paid for, so the stuff was available pretty much buckshee and was consequently imposed upon the upstart service.

...also not true. About 1/6th. Some 55,000 in the RNAS and 290,000 in the RFC if I recall correctly?

Cazalet

The original blue was somewhat different to what we ended up with - luckily!

http://www.britairforce.com/images/r..._1918_lb_a.jpg

And also a brown one for a while as well

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/15...g?v=1505557787

To detract from all the misery at the moment; another good news story this week after the news of the royal engagement.
The 100 year experiment is shortly to draw to a close with a year of celebrations all round.
Looking forward to wishing my RAF chums bon anniversaire!

Yup. That's the colour, jRaven.

The shape shifted a bit, but not much.

The drill was based on Pongo stuff. Though the army limit of three steps sidewards escaped the new drill manual, so we got got our unfortunate nickname.

Ahhhh, always follow the money.

A big all-round congratulations.

Early RAF uniforms are very interesting, with several changes in the first year or two of its existence. At one stage officer rank was indicated by bars on the cap. Army officer ranks were used until 1919 I believe, and I have certainly seen WW1 medals named to a Lieutenant RAF (not RFC). I also once had a George V LS&GC named to a Sergeant Major, RAF - not sure how long that rank lasted until it was replaced by WO 1 and 2.

On the subject of officer ranks one set of rank names which was proposed was this rather fanciful list - Ensign, Lieutenant, Flight-Leader, Squadron-Leader, Reeve, Banneret, Fourth-Ardian, Third-Ardian, Second-Ardian, Ardian, Air Marshal. Apparently 'ardian' means "bird leader' in Gaelic!

Any retired Reeves or Bannerets on here? ;)

Presumably why the officers got the Naval rank titles and everyone else the Army's.

Superb uniform shots above. I have a button off my grandfather's RFC uniform, only issued for what, about 4 years?

People celebrate their birthday, not their moment of conception.....

The Order in Council was finally signed on 22nd March 1918.

Archive Material

The only way I see that happening is if said Typhoon was stationary on a boat as it travelled up the river.....

I understood it was due to the grease applied to the exposed ferrous parts of embarked aircraft being known by the sailors as 'crabfat'.

Both credible stories.

Or perhaps due to the fact that RAF personnel embarked aboard the RN's finest always walked sideways, back to the bulkhead!

I heard they are going to have a full 5 hour airshow featuring the RAF... but I am buggered if I know what they will pad out the remaining 4 hours 50 minutes of the airshow with..

I mean you could celebrate both, unless you feel you should only enjoy yourself once a year?

NL - Sad to see such cynicism in one so young but you may just be correct.....

Even scarcer are the RNAS buttons which followed the naval pattern with the rope around the rim. I believe these were sometimes worn on early RAF uniforms, although not on the examples illustrated by iRaven above.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=rn...w=1366&bih=662