"Military public relations endeavors ultimately seek to build a sense of common interests and aims, and so generally foster good relations with the people they defend, and there in ensure a stable society. The armed forces when engaging on any public relations exercise, have traditionally sought to provide an entertaining spectacle. For years this has been typified by parades, bands, mock battles, drill displays and other relevant feats of military prowess which have captured the imagination of the public and inspired potential recruits. The 20th Century brought a new dimension to the field of warfare and subsequently added a new strand to the fabric of public ceremony and displays by the armed forces. That new dimension was the arrival of powered flight.Display flying began within five years of the Wright Brothers making their milestone first flight. The first events staged in Britain which centered on demonstrations by flying machines, were organized by the town councils of Blackpool and Doncaster and were held within days of each other in October 1909. 1920 was the year that the first of the famed and legendary Hendon Air Pageants was staged, and this is where military air shows traditionally began. The Hendon Displays were organized and staged by the still fledging Royal Air Force and it was probably due in no small part to the prestige and spectacle of this fresh new dimension of military pageantry, together with other like events held at RAF airfields through the next two decades, that the very existence of the RAF was saved from the threat of abolition. The history of the RAF's commitment (one that compares almost uniquely with other air forces) toward display flying through the years after World War II has now come of age. This account of their record in this often overlooked but then again traditional field of military customs, describes and illustrates the major public RAF events since 1920."

A fully illustrated history of the Royal Air Force while on operations, publishing to mark the centenary of its foundation in World War I. The world's first independent air force, the Royal Air Force celebrates its centenary in 2018. In the 100 years since the end of World War I, the service has been involved in almost continuous operations around the globe, giving the RAF the longest and most wide-ranging history of any air force in the world. But over the years this history has also become entangled with myths. The Royal Air Force: A Centenary of Operations sets the record straight, dispelling these as it uncovers – in both words and photographs – the true exploits and accomplishments of RAF personnel over the last 100 years. From its formation as an independent service in the dying days of World War I, its desperate fight against the Axis air forces in World War II, to its commitments during both the Cold War and modern times, this is the complete story of how the RAF has defended Britain for a century.

Each forward-thinking air force has now to consider potential threat scenarios that are futuristic and require some degree of planning. This volume contains data on 14 nations and their attempts to modernize, mobilize and keep ahead of their adversaries.

By early 1941, the war raged in Europe and Great Britain stood alone against the aerial might of Nazi Germany. Although much of the Royal Air Force's pilot training program had been relocated to Canada and other Dominion countries, the need for pilots remained acute. The British looked to the United States for possible assistance. Passage of the Lend-Lease Act in March 1941 allowed for the training of British pilots in the United States and the formation of British Flying Training Schools. These unique schools were owned by American operators, staffed with American civilian instructors, supervised by British Royal Air Force officers, utilized aircraft supplied by the U.S. Army Air Corps, and used the RAF training syllabus. Within these pages, Tom Killebrew provides the first comprehensive history of all seven British Flying Training Schools located in Terrell, Texas; Lancaster, California; Miami, Oklahoma; Mesa, Arizona; Clewiston, Florida; Ponca City, Oklahoma; and Sweetwater, Texas. The first British students arrived in a still-neutral United States in June 1941. Many had never been in an airplane (or even driven an automobile), but they mastered the elements of flight, attended ground school classes, were introduced to the mysteries of the Link trainer and instrument flight, and then ventured out on cross country exercises. Students began night flying with the natural apprehension associated with taking off into a black sky, aided by only a few instruments, a flickering flare path, and limited ground references. Some students failed the periodic check flights and had to be eliminated from training, while others were killed during mishaps and are buried in local cemeteries. Those who finished the course became Royal Air Force pilots. But the story of the British Flying Training Schools is more than the story of young men learning to fly. These young British students would also forge a strong and long-lasting bond of friendship with the Americans they came to know. This bond would last not only during training, but would continue throughout the war, and still exist long after the end of the war.

Between the world wars the main task of the RAF was to crush tribal rebellions against British rule. This study, based almost entirely on unpublished documents, shows how the independent peacetime role of air policing ensured the survival of the RAF during the lean financial times after WWI. Its analysis of rebellion and imperial violence is of interest to a broad audience. Distributed by St. Martin's Press. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

During World War II, the US Army Air Forces (AAF) trained over 21,000 aircrew members from 29 Allied countries. The two largest programs, 79 percent of those trained, were for Britain and France. The Royal Air Force (RAF), fully engaged against the German Air Force by December 1940, was not able to train new aircrews. The British government asked the United States to train new pilots until it could get its own flight training program underway. Lieutenant General Henry "Hap" Arnold, chief of the Army Air Corps, authorized the training of RAF pilots at select airfields in the southeast United States, including at Maxwell and Gunter fields near Montgomery, Alabama. Between June 1941 and February 1943, when the RAF terminated what became known as the Arnold Plan, 4,300 of more than 7,800 RAF cadets sent to the United States completed the three-phase AAF flight training program. Within three months, some of the same schools, including the phase 2 school at Gunter Field, began training Free French Air Force flight cadets. By November 1945, when the US government terminated the French training program, 2,100 French flight cadets out of the 4,100 who came to the United States had received their wings. This book tells for the first time the story of the RAF and Free French flight training programs in central Alabama, covering the origins, the issues, and the problems that occurred during the training programs, and the results and lessons learned.

With the outbreak of World War II, British RAF officials sought to train aircrews outside of England, safe from enemy attack and poor weather. In the USA, six civilian flight schools dedicated themselves to instructing RAF pilots. Tom Killebrew explores the history of the Terrell Aviation School.

British Imperial Air Power examines the air defense of Australia and New Zealand during the interwar period. It also demonstrates the difficulty of applying new military aviation technology to the defense of the global Empire and provides insight into the nature of the political relationship between the Pacific Dominions and Britain. Following World War I, both Dominions sought greater independence in defense and foreign policy. Public aversion to military matters and the economic dislocation resulting from the war and later the Depression left little money that could be provided for their respective air forces. As a result, the Empire’s air services spent the entire interwar period attempting to create a strategy in the face of these handicaps. In order to survive, the British Empire’s military air forces offered themselves as a practical and economical third option in the defense of Britain’s global Empire, intending to replace the Royal Navy and British Army as the traditional pillars of imperial defense.

“Packed with drama, both military and political.… It will surely prove definitive.” —Lewis Jones, Daily Telegraph This compact, masterful work by an outstanding historian marks a pivotal moment in military history: the birth of Britain’s Royal Air Force. Writing with great clarity, Richard Overy shows how the RAF emerged from the deadly stalemate of trench warfare during World War I. With German bombers attacking British cities by 1917, Prime Minister David Lloyd George and his minister of munitions, Winston Churchill, navigated the organizational breakthrough that made the RAF an independent force in spring 1918. The RAF would prove highly influential in the development of air power around the world.

This is the second volume of the classified history of air defence in Great Britain. Written while World War II was still being fought, the account has an analysis of the defensive tactics of Fighter Command, and attempts a day-by-day analysis of the action as it took place.