News RAF 100 years old today.

[Notebook]

RAF anniversary flypast at Biggin Hill
A formation of three World War Two aircraft - a Spitfire T9, Spitfire Mk IX and a Hawker Hurricane X - have flown over the wartime airfield of Biggin Hill.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-43612268/raf-anniversary-flypast-at-biggin-hill

https://www.raf.mod.uk/raf100/

April 1, 1918
When Air Power came of age

The Royal Air Force was formed as a separate Service, independent of the British Army and Royal Navy – the first time that any country had formed an entirely separate and independent air force. The new Service had its own ministry under a secretary of state for air. The 'new' RAF was the most powerful air force in the world with more than 290,000 personnel and nearly 23,000 aircraft, and fought effectively from April 1 1918 over the Western Front in support of ground forces. General Jan Christian Smuts said of Air Power: 'There is absolutely no limit to the scale of its future independent war use.'

https://www.raf.mod.uk/raf100/timeline/

 

[Notebook]

RAF100 being marked today, exhibits around the country. Large flypast of 100 aircraft over London this Pm.

Up to 100 aircraft will take part in a flypast over Buckingham Palace later to mark 100 years of the Royal Air Force.
The Queen will be among members of the royal family attending a day of events to celebrate the RAF's centenary.
Westminster Abbey will host a special service and more than a thousand servicemen and women will take part in a parade on The Mall.
Aircraft representing the RAF across the decades will then be involved in the flypast over London at 13:00 BST.
It will feature the new F-35 Lightning - Britain's cutting-edge stealth fighter jet - which will fly at a public event for the first time.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44775939

N.

 

[boogabooga]

Anniversary was in April, why wait till now?

 

[Notebook]

Tourism probably. There are events on all year all over the country.
RAF got a new colour flag, there may be a link to the date.

Haven't seen pageantry like this since the last Royal wedding, and the one before that,
and the one...

See it shares the same anniversary as the US Air Mail service.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airmails_of_the_United_States



Don't know about the Pony Express.

N.

 

[birdmanmike]

Anniversary was in April, why wait till now?

Rumour has it they thought All Fool's Day was an unfortunate co-incidence . . .

 

[Notebook]

Not related to the 100 year anniversary, but memorable in its own right:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-45516556

Winston Churchill described the Battle of Britain pilots as "these splendid men… who will have the glory of saving their native land". But they weren't all British. A new film, Hurricane, tells the story of the Polish pilots of 303 Squadron - and highlights the brilliance of an often-overlooked Czech flying ace, Josef Frantisek.
He was "remarkable - some thought a little crazy", wrote the historians Lynne Olson and Stanley Cloud. A Czech "who flew with a fury none of the others could match".
Josef Frantisek has been credited with shooting down 17 enemy aircraft in one month at the height of the Battle of Britain - September 1940 - as Hitler sought to achieve the air superiority he needed to invade the UK.
The Imperial War Museum calls Frantisek the "top scorer" of the Battle of Britain, and he is generally considered to be one of the top scorers of the entire war, despite his death in its very early stages.

Had no idea of this man, little less that he had that score. Don't remember him in the usual aeronautical mags.

N.