FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1935
1935 - 1547.PDF
JUNE 27, 1935. FLIGHT. 691 A Fairey IIIF floatplane on the catapult of the cruiser H.M.S. Exeter. All capital ships and cruisers will soon be fitted with one or more catapults for launching seaplanes. (Flight photograph.) numbers between 500 and 600—e.g., No. 501 (City of Bristol) (Bomber) Squadron—are Cadre squadrons. In all these squadrons the commanding officer is a regular, and there are in the squadron enough regular officers and airmen to man one flight. The remaining officers and airmen belong to what is called the Special Reserve. They are civilians who volunteer to give their services, mostly without pay, to the squadron in their spare time. In the event of mobilisation, they would be called up and normally would serve throughout the emer gency with their own squadron. In this respect they are quite different from the R.A.F. Reserve, who are not organised in squadrons, and who would, on mobilisation, be added to the regular R.A.F. wherever they were most required. The Special Reserve, and also the Auxiliary Air Force, differ also from the regulars in that members of the two voluntary bodies, in practice if not in theory, belong permanently to their own squadrons, whereas the regular R.A.F. is on the same footing as the Navy, and officers and men are constantly transferred from squadron to squadron just as sailors serve now on one ship and then on another. The members of the Special Reserve and the Auxiliary Air Force resemble more the officers and men of the Army, who are perma nently posted to one regiment or corps, and usually spend the whole of their service as a member of it. Association with regular officers and airmen both at work and in mess results in the Special Reserve personnel acquiring much of the outlook of the regulars and learning their methods of work. All ranks are very keen, and their keenness is directed into the best channels by the best instructors. The Auxiliary Air Force is again a different organisation. It is on very much the same footing as the Territorial Army, and, like it, is in the care of County Associations. The officers and men are almost entirely volunteers, and ia particular the commanding officer of each squadron is not a regular. Each squadron represents the voluntary effort of its own city or county. The R.A.F. provides the machines, aerodrome, and other equipment, and it also supplies two regular officers to act as adjutant and assistant adjutant, and also as flying instructors. These two must hold certificates as instructors from the Central Flying School, as they have to teach the new A.A.F. officers to fly. There is also a small nucleus of regular airmen in each squadron to act as instructors and to look after the machines on the days when it is impossible for the A.A.F. men to be present on the aerodrome. Each of these squad rons has its own ideals, and attains efficiency in its own way. The keenness of all ranks makes them very effi cient, and they always perform with credit at the Hendon Display and in the annual Air Exercises held by A.D.G.B. The Auxiliary Air Force squadrons are numbered from 600 upwards—e.g.. No. 601 (County of London) (Bomber) Squadron—and they have, like, the Cadre squadrons, territorial names. Three of these squadrons are organised as two-seater fighters and the rest as light bombers. There is much more which might be said about the R.A.F. A whole separate story could be told about the Commands which have no concern with A.D.GB. The Air Force has to work with the Navy and the Army, and its work overseas is also a thing apart. For the present time of expansion the above outline tells what most people probably want to know. -..Kit* |111; f, ji t IF P' 1 |pRi if The R A.F. College at Cranwell, where cadets are trained for permanent commissions in the Royal Air Force. Flight photograph.)
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
