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Royal Air Force

Air and space warfare force of the United Kingdom

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The RAF's mission is to support the objectives of the British Ministry of Defence (MOD), which are to "provide the capabilities needed to ensure the security and defence of the United Kingdom and overseas territories, including against terrorism; to support the Government's foreign policy objectives particularly in promoting international peace and security". Its mission statement as "... [to provide] an agile, adaptable and capable Air Force that, person for person, is second to none, and that makes a decisive air power contribution in support of the UK Defence Mission". The mission statement is supported by the RAF's definition of air power, which guides its strategy. Air power is defined as "the ability to project power from the air and space to influence the behaviour of people or the course of events".

Today, the Royal Air Force maintains an operational fleet of various types of aircraft, described as being "leading-edge" in terms of technology. This largely consists of fixed-wing aircraft, including those in the following roles: fighter and strike, airborne early warning and control, intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance (ISTAR), signals intelligence (SIGINT), maritime patrol, air-to-air refueling (AAR) and strategic & tactical transport. The majority of the their rotary-wing aircraft form part of the tri-service Joint Aviation Command in support of ground forces. Most of their aircraft and personnel are based in the UK, with many others serving on global operations (principally over Iraq and Syria) or at long-established overseas bases (Ascension Island, Cyprus, Gibraltar, and the Falkland Islands). Although they are the principal British air power arm, the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm and the British Army's Army Air Corps also operate armed aircraft.

History

Origins

The Royal Air Force was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918 by merging the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). This made it the second independent air force in the world after the Finnish Air Force (established 6 March 1918).

The merger was initially recommended by a report issued on 17 August 1917 by the South African statesman and general Jan Smuts, with significant contributions from Lieutenant General David Henderson. The Smuts Report informed the creation of the Air Force (Constitution) Bill, which made provision for the creation of an independent Air Force. This was passed by Parliament on 23 November 1917, and received royal assent as the Air Force (Constitution) Act 1917 (7 & 8 Geo. 5. c. 51) on 29 November 1917. On 7 March 1918, King George V issued a royal decree naming the new service the 'Royal Air Force'. At the time of its formation, it was the largest air force in the world. Its first headquarters were the former Hotel Cecil on the Strand in London.

After the war, their size was drastically cut, and its inter-war years were relatively quiet. They were put in charge of British military activity in Iraq, and carried out minor actions in other parts of the British Empire, including establishing bases to protect Singapore and Malaya. Their naval aviation branch, the Fleet Air Arm, was founded in 1924 but handed over to Admiralty control on 24 May 1939. In 1925, they carried out their first independent operation, conducting a successful air campaign against rebelling Mahsud tribesmen during Pink's War.

It was among the earliest and keenest advocates of the doctrine of strategic bombing, informed by Britain's experience of German air attacks in the First World War. Starting in the early 1920s, strategic bombing saw significant technical and tactical development in the RAF, and ultimately became Britain's main offensive airpower strategy during the Second World War.

Second World War

The Royal Air Force underwent rapid expansion prior to and during the Second World War. Under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan of December 1939, the air forces of British Commonwealth countries trained and formed "Article XV squadrons" for service with its formations. Many individual personnel from these countries, and exiles from occupied Europe, also served with their squadrons. By the end of the war the Royal Canadian Air Force had contributed more than 30 squadrons to serve in its formations, similarly, approximately a quarter of Bomber Command's personnel were Canadian. Additionally, the Royal Australian Air Force represented around nine per cent of their personnel who served in the European and Mediterranean theatres.

During the Battle of Britain in 1940, the organization defended the skies over Britain against the numerically superior German Luftwaffe. In what is perhaps the most prolonged and complicated air campaign in history, the Battle of Britain contributed significantly to the delay and subsequent indefinite postponement of Operation Sea Lion, Hitler's plans for an invasion of the UK. In the House of Commons on 20 August, prompted by their ongoing efforts, Prime Minister Winston Churchill made a speech to the nation, where he said "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few".

The largest effort during the war was the strategic bombing campaign against Germany by Bomber Command. While their bombing of Germany began almost immediately upon the outbreak of war at first it was ineffectual; it was only later, particularly under the leadership of Air Chief Marshal Harris, that these attacks became increasingly devastating, from early 1943 onward, as new technology and greater numbers of superior aircraft became available. They adopted night-time area bombing on German cities such as Hamburg and Dresden. Night time area bombing constituted the great bulk of their bombing campaign, mainly due to Harris, but it also developed precision bombing techniques for specific operations, such as the infamous "Dambusters" raid by No. 617 Squadron, or the Amiens prison raid known as Operation Jericho.

Cold War era

Following victory in the Second World War, they underwent significant re-organisation, as technological advances in air warfare saw the arrival of jet fighters and bombers. During the early stages of the Cold War, one of the first major operations undertaken was the Berlin Airlift, codenamed Operation Plainfire. Between 26 June 1948 and the lifting of the Soviet blockade of the city on 12 May 1949, the RAF provided 17% of the total supplies delivered, using Avro Yorks, Douglas Dakotas flying to Gatow Airport and Short Sunderlands flying to Lake Havel. They saw its first post-war engagements in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War: during the withdrawal of the former Mandatory Palestine in May 1948 where British Supermarine Spitfire FR.18s shot down four Royal Egyptian Air Force Spitfire LF.9s after the REAF mistakenly attacked Ramat David airbase; and during encounters with the Israeli Air Force which saw the loss of a single de Havilland Mosquito PR.34 in November 1948 and four Spitfire FR.18s and a single Hawker Tempest F.6 in January 1949.

Before Britain developed its own nuclear weapons, they were provided with American nuclear weapons under Project E. However, following the development of its own arsenal, the British Government elected on 16 February 1960 to share the country's nuclear deterrent between them and submarines of the Royal Navy, first deciding to concentrate solely on the air force's V bomber fleet. These were initially armed with nuclear gravity bombs, later being equipped with the Blue Steel missile. Following the development of the Royal Navy's Polaris submarines, the strategic nuclear deterrent passed to the navy's submarines on 30 June 1969. With the introduction of Polaris, their strategic nuclear role was reduced to a tactical one, using WE.177 gravity bombs. This tactical role was continued by the V bombers into the 1980s and until 1998 by the Panavia Tornado GR1.

For much of the Cold War the primary role was the defence of Western Europe against potential attack by the Soviet Union, with many squadrons based in West Germany. The main bases were Brüggen, Gutersloh, Laarbruch and Wildenrath – the only air defence base. With the decline of the British Empire, global operations were scaled back, and Far East Air Force was disbanded on 31 October 1971. Despite this, they fought in many battles in the Cold War period. Operations continued for the next 12 years until 1960 with aircraft flying out of Tengah and Butterworth. They played a minor role in the Korean War, with flying boats taking part. From 1953 to 1956 the Avro Lincoln squadrons carried out anti-Mau Mau operations in Kenya using its base at Eastleigh. The Suez Crisis in 1956 saw a large role, with aircraft operating from Akrotiri and Nicosia on Cyprus and Luqa and Hal Far on Malta as part of Operation Musketeer. They suffered its most recent loss to an enemy aircraft during the Suez Crisis, when an English Electric Canberra PR7 was shot down over Syria.

In 1957, they participated heavily during the Jebel Akhdar War in Oman, operating both de Havilland Venom and Avro Shackleton aircraft. They made 1,635 raids, dropping 1,094 tons and firing 900 rockets at the interior of Oman between July and December 1958, targeting insurgents, mountain top villages and water channels in a war that remained under low profile. The Konfrontasi against Indonesia in the early 1960s did see use of their aircraft, but due to a combination of deft diplomacy and selective ignoring of certain events by both sides, it never developed into a full-scale war. They played a large role in the Aden Emergency between 1963 and 1967. Hawker Hunter FGA.9s based at Khormaksar, Aden, were regularly called in by the British Army as close air support to carry out strikes on rebel positions. The Radfan Campaign (Operation Nutcracker) in early 1964 was successful in suppressing the revolt in Radfa, however it did nothing to end the insurgency with the British withdrawing from Aden in November 1967.

One of the largest actions undertaken by them during the Cold War was the air campaign during the 1982 Falklands War, in which they operated alongside the Fleet Air Arm. During the war, aircraft were deployed in the mid-Atlantic at Ascension Island and a detachment from No. 1 Squadron was deployed with the Royal Navy, operating from the aircraft carrier HMS Hermes. Pilots also flew missions using the Royal Navy's Sea Harriers in the air-to-air combat role, in particular Flight Lieutenant Dave Morgan the highest scoring pilot of the war. Following a British victory, they remained in the South Atlantic to provide air defence to the Falkland Islands, with the McDonnell Douglas Phantom FGR2 based at Mount Pleasant which was built in 1984.

Post-Cold War

With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, their focus returned to expeditionary air power. Since 1990, they have been involved in several large-scale operations, including the 1991 Gulf War, the 1999 Kosovo War, the 2001 War in Afghanistan, the 2003 invasion and war in Iraq, the 2011 intervention in Libya and from 2014 onwards has been involved in the war against the Islamic State.

They began conducting Remotely-piloted Air System (RPAS) operations in 2004, with No. 1115 Flight carrying out missions in Afghanistan and Iraq with the General Atomics MQ-1 Predator. Initially embedded with the United States Air Force, they formed their own RPAS squadron in 2007 when No. 39 Squadron was stood up as a General Atomics MQ-9A Reaper unit at Creech AFB, Nevada.

Its 90th anniversary was commemorated on 1 April 2008 by a flypast of the their Aerobatic Display Team the Red Arrows and four Eurofighter Typhoons along the River Thames, in a straight line from just south of London City Airport Tower Bridge, the London Eye, the Memorial and (at 13.00) the Ministry of Defence building.

Four major defence reviews have been conducted since the end of the Cold War: the 1990 Options for Change, the 1998 Strategic Defence Review, the 2003 Delivering Security in a Changing World and the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR). All four defence reviews have resulted in steady reductions in manpower and numbers of aircraft, especially combat aircraft such as fast-jets. Other reductions saw total manpower reduced by 5,000 personnel to a trained strength of 33,000 and the early retirement of the Joint Force Harrier aircraft, the BAE Harrier GR7/GR9.

In recent years, fighter aircraft on Quick Reaction Alert have been increasingly required to scramble in response to Russian Air Force aircraft approaching British airspace. On 24 January 2014, in the Houses of Parliament, Conservative MP and Minister of State for the Armed Forces, Andrew Robathan, announced that they had been scrambled almost thirty times in the last three years: eleven times during 2010, ten times during 2011 and eight times during 2012. Coningsby in Lincolnshire and Lossiemouth in Moray both provide Quick reaction alert aircraft, and scramble their Typhoons within minutes to meet or intercept aircraft which give cause for concern. Lossiemouth generally covers the northern sector of UK airspace, while Coningsby covers the southern sector. Typhoon pilot Flight Lieutenant Noel Rees describes how QRA duty works. "At the start of the scaled QRA response, civilian air traffic controllers might see on their screens an aircraft behaving erratically, not responding to their radio calls, or note that it's transmitting a distress signal through its transponder. Rather than scramble Typhoons at the first hint of something abnormal, a controller has the option to put them on a higher level of alert, 'a call to cockpit'. In this scenario the pilot races to the hardened aircraft shelter and does everything short of starting his engines".

On 4 October 2015, a final stand-down saw the end of more than 70 years of Search and Rescue provision in the UK. Royal Air Force and Royal Navy's Westland Sea King fleets, after over 30 years of service, were retired. A civilian contractor, Bristow Helicopters, took over responsibility for UK Search and Rescue, under a Private Finance Initiative with newly purchased Sikorsky S-92 and AgustaWestland AW189 aircraft. The new contract means that all UK SAR coverage is now provided by Bristow aircraft.

In 2018, their vision of a future constellation of imagery satellites was initiated through the launch of the Carbonite-2 technology demonstrator. The 100 kg Carbonite-2 uses commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components to deliver high-quality imagery and 3D video footage from space. The Royal Air Force celebrated its 100th anniversary on 1 April 2018. It marked the occasion on 10 July 2018 with a flypast over London consisting of 103 aircraft.

Between March 2020 and 2022, they assisted with the response efforts to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom as part of Operation Rescript. This saw the service provide repatriation flights and aeromedical evacuations of COVID-19 patients, drivers and call-handlers to support ambulance services and medics to assist with the staffing of hospitals, testing units and vaccination centres. Under Operation Broadshare, they have also been involved with COVID-19 relief operations overseas, repatriating stranded nationals and delivering medical supplies and vaccines to British Overseas Territories and military installations.

The UK's 20-year long operations in Afghanistan came to an end in August 2021, seeing the largest airlift since the Berlin Blockade take place. As part of Operation Pitting, it helped evacuate over 15,000 people in two weeks. Between April and May 2023, it helped evacuate over 2,300 people from Sudan due to the 2023 Sudan conflict as part of Operation Polarbear.

In April 2024, Typhoon FGR4s operating from Akrotiri, Cyprus, engaged and destroyed Iranian drones over Iraqi and Syrian airspace during Iran's strikes against Israel.

On 26 and 27 March 2025, Puma helicopters marked their retirement from service with a flypast of locations with a historical link to Puma including Odiham, Andover, Middle Wallop Flying Station, MOD Boscombe Down, Thiepval Barracks, PJHQ, Halton, High Wycombe, Benson, Cosford, Shawbury as well as other places across the UK.

In June 2025, pro-Palestinian activists broke into Brize Norton Royal Air Force base in Oxfordshire, vandalising and tampering with aircraft. Such actions constitute a national security risk. The ensuing arrests garnered media attention, and the group Palestine Action, which claimed responsibility for the break-in, was later proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the UK government. In addition, a decision was made to begin a 'security review' of military bases across the United Kingdom.

During the 2026 Iran war, it flew sorties in defence of British allies, including Cyprus and other Middle Eastern allies. This operation marked its first use of the F-35B to shoot-down drones in combat. The UK-Qatar joint Typhoon squadron was also involved in these sorties. Its Regiment gunners also operated ground-based air defence against Iranian drones.

On 9 May 2026, a specialist UK military team executed a first-of-its-kind emergency humanitarian mission, parachuting onto Tristan da Cunha to treat a British national with suspected hantavirus. A local island resident who disembarked from the virus-hit cruise ship MV Hondius. Oxygen supplies at the island's hospital had reached a critical level. The territory normally operates with just a two-person medical team. Six paratroopers and two military clinicians from the 16 Air Assault Brigade launched the mission. Because of the specialised medical care required, an intensive care nurse and an intensive care doctor were strapped to paratroopers for tandem jumps. The team flew 6,788 km from Brize Norton to Ascension Island. They then flew over 3,000 km to the drop zone, supported by mid-air refuelling from an Voyager. Medics battled winds exceeding 25 mph to land safely on the island's rocky golf course. Simultaneously, an A400M aircraft air-dropped 3.3 tonnes of vital medical aid and oxygen.

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