royal air force

Went to one of our local seaside airshows at Rhyl on the North Wales coast at the weekend, its normally quite a quiet show but any opportunity to take some photos after the last couple of years is welcome! Halfway through the Red Arrows display at the end of the show there was a dull thud...

About 6 months ago I came across mention of a Havoc variant known as the Havoc Pandora, or Havoc III It was built upon RAF Havoc Is but featured a 2000ft cable with an aerial mine attached. 20 units were converted and used by No.240 Flight (redesignated No.93 Sqn). Eventually they were converted...

The English Electric Canberra became the UK's light strike bomber in both nuclear and conventional roles. It served long after it was obsolete in the face of Russian fighters and air defences. The RAF realised this and embarked on a programme to replace Canberra in the early 1960s. As we all...

In this Douglas P-70 night fighter of the 419th NFS, crash landed at Piva-Bougainville by Lt Donald Dessert, the fixed quarter wave dipoles for azimuth receiving have been replaced by four german style “Stachel” rods. Can anyone identify which radar they belong to?

One of Harold Wilson's achievements as Prime Minister was to resist President Johnson's pressure for Britain to make some visible military contribution to the Vietnam War. Wilson had only narrowly beaten a Conservative Government in 1964. The Conservatives may well have resisted Johnson too on...

The RAF are getting pair of Dassault Falcon 900LX to replace the BAE 146 (slowly retired one has gone into our local Imperial War Museum Duxford last week) at 32 (Royal) Squadron...

Bristol Britannia BEWARE: as pictured in Chris Gibson's books 'The Air Staff and AEW' and 'Battle Flight'. I followed the drawing, with one exception: after Chris mentioned the limitations of Britannia's electrical system, I added a large APU under the left wing root. Hawker Siddeley...

Margaret Thatcher's defeat to Michael Foot in Britain's 1983 general election came as no surprise to television pundits. Rising unemployment and failure to reduce inflation despite government cuts, including to the Armed Forces had made the public fed up and willing to try a new course. Prime...

In the 1960s, the RAF started to examine options for land-based AEW aircraft. NASR.6166 was a joint RAF/RN requirement issued in 1962, for a carrier-borne AEW aircraft that would also be used from land bases. This requirement specified an FMICW radar. That didn't stop companies from offering...

... that is after the Spitfire is established both in production and service. If it becomes the 'British Dassault', commercial-vise, I'm more than okay with that.

Dad was involved in trials of the secret Johhny Walker bomber dropped during the Tirpitz raid but never knew how it got the JW name. He believed it was named after the favourite tipple boffins drank during drawing board research, or one of the actual scientists? Anyone know? robin bird ref...

In THIS THREAD, the re-equipment of the Red Arrows has been touched upon, so I thought it would be a good idea to break out a thread to discuss this subject. What should the Red Arrows use after the Hawks are retired? Should the Red Arrows continue after the Hawks are retired? cheers, Robin.

I'm on the scrounge. Does anyone have a copy , or just the key text, of specification R.2/33 that they would be willing to share? Failing that does anyone know whether the text of the specification has been included in any article or book, most likely one about the Sunderland. Thanks

The United States Strategic Bombing Survey was a written report created by a board of experts assembled to produce an impartial assessment of the effects of Anglo-American strategic bombing of Nazi Germany during the European theatre of World War II. After publishing its report, the Survey...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57692303 https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2021/07/02/bagram-afghanistan-biden-war/ https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-left-afghan-airfield-night-173121460.html https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57682290...

With the A400M in service with the RAF we now know what a C130 replacement looks like. Of course the original C130 "replacement" for the RAF would have been AW/HS 681 had it made it into service. The US tried to replace the C130 in the 70s with the YC14 and 15. Instead the 15 morphed into the...

I have come across this cutaway drawing of the Armstrong Whitworth AW680. I cannot find anymore info on it, does anyone have specifications or other drawings of it?

I have seen somewhere that Grand slam weapons were considered for use on high value targets on the Japanese mainland. If the B-29 was in fact ready even in small number for use then, would they not have value against logistical high value targets in the conflict with North Korea? Just a...

It struck pondering what I now know about UK AI radar efforts... Whether like the AI.21 and AI.23, there was a similar parallel in AI.24 and AI.25...? Consider the following. AI.24 was always an ambitious system that originally was FMCW. The back-up option on this all new system and...

It is unclear if she was still in service post-World War II, but if she was still around in 1948 it is debatable whether or not she would have been technically entitled to the HMAFV (His Majesty's Air Force Vessel) prefix, given that she wasn't a powered vessel.