It's not the 100th anniversary of the FAA

[Haggis]

It's a detail point but important none the less. It's NOT the centenary of the Fleet Air Arm this year, it's 100 years of naval aviation. The FAA as we know it came into existance in early 1939 when the Royal Navy finally regained control from the RAF having lost it when they were created in 1918.

[AnonymousDFB1]

Good point, not one I knew about

[Troffa]

I have wondered about this particular "Centenary", what exactly were the Royal Navy flying in 1909? Bleriot monoplanes?

Edited August 20, 2009 by Troffa

[Haggis]

what exactly were the Royal Navy flying in 1909?

Airships old chap. Some were based at RNAS Daedalus which is now Cranwell!!!!!!

[Test Graham]

if you use 1939 as the date for the formation of the Fleet Air Arm, you have some problems because the term was used between the wars, but abandoned in 1939 when the Navy took over. As few people paid any attention to this ruling (or can remember the correct name) the term was officially revived postwar. So you can have a range of dates for the formation of the FAA, but I rather feel that the oldest is the most appropriate.

[gengriz]

Just to complicate things, the RN Airships of 1911 (it took 2 years to actually build HMA01) were not actually operated by the Royal Naval Air Service, but by the regular Navy, with Army Balloon Corps support.

The RNAS was originally the Naval Arm of the Royal Flying Corps, but split off and became a separate service in 1914, because there were just too many differences in the way that the Army & the Navy wanted to use aircraft - the RFC concentrated on observation & reconnaisance, the RN wanted an armed offensive force as an extnesion of the Fleet at sea/off the coast, equipped with bombers.

The term Fleet Air Arm is in fact an RAF title, the full name being Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Air Force, This was created post 1918 as a part of the newly formed Independent Air Force that soon after became the RAF. It included Coastal Command (which became 18 Group). This was originally an RNAS formation (possibly the biggest), but remained with the RAF in 1939 when the rest of the FAA came back into RN control (ex RNAS Sqns often just added 200 to their RNAS Number when they transferred to the RAF, hence 208 Sqn, nowadays flying Nimrod MPAs, was originally the famous "Naval 8", RNAS).

The RN component of the FAA were known as the Air Branch (and wore "A"s inside the curled ring of their rank stripes). The A Branch existed long before 1939 - it was, in effect, the last remainng part of the Royal Naval Air Service. From 1918 until 1939, there were rules on the percentage of RN & RAF Officers in the Fleet Air arm - for example ALL Observers were Naval Officers, (not necessarily of the Air Branch), Pilots were mixed RN & RAF, whereas engineers/technicians and fitters were almost entirely RAF, even at sea.

Naval Aviators have had many different titles since then, but the name of the force that was transferred back from the RAF in 1939 has pretty much stuck, unofficially and officially, hence they are now widely known (in polite circles) as the Fleet Air Arm.

So... I fully expect to we will celebrate 100yrs of British Naval Aircraft in 2011, 100yrs of the RNAS in 2014 and 100 Yrs of the Fleet Air Arm in 2018 !