RAF Officer Ranks
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The officer ranks of the
Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...
, as they are today, were introduced in 1919. Prior to that Army ranks were used.


Ranks


Command flags


Notes


Origins

Lieutenant General David Henderson originally proposed that
Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...
officers use a combination of
British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...
and
Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...
ranks. However, the
War Office The War Office has referred to several British government organisations throughout history, all relating to the army. It was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, at ...
argued that the RAF should have its own ranks and the Admiralty opposed any use of their rank titles.


Badges of rank

On 1 April 1918, Air Force Memorandum 2 specified rank insignia for the newly established independent force. Rank was to be worn on the jacket cuff and was derived from the Royal Navy's rings, each equivalent rank having the same number of rings. However, second lieutenants (now pilot officers) displayed a crowned eagle only and the Navy's loop was not used for any rank. Depending on the uniform, either gold or pale blue on grey braid was worn. In August 1918,
Air Ministry The Air Ministry was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force and civil aviation that existed from 1918 to 1964. It was under the political authority of the ...
Weekly Order 617 added a single band of braid below the second lieutenant's eagle and all other officer ranks also received a crowned eagle above their braid on the left arm only. In 1919 the colour of the rank braid was changed to black with a central pale blue stripe. However, on RAF
mess dress Mess dress uniform is the most formal (or semi-formal wear, semi-formal, depending on the country) type of evening-wear uniform used by military personnel, Police officer, police personnel, and other uniformed services members. It frequently ...
rank continued to be displayed in gold.


Sleeve ranks

The ranks worn on the sleeve are common to all RAF uniform variants incorporating the Jacket. The centre of the rank (measured from the bottom of the lowest braid to the top of the highest) should be from the cuff and each row of braiding should have a space of from other rows. The thinnest braid, as found on the pilot officer's rank (and in the middle of the squadron leader's rank), is ; the flying officer's braid common to all the ranks except air commodore and pilot officer, is , and the thickest braid, as found on all air officer ranks, is .


Shoulder boards

Shoulder boards (as shown) are worn by officers of general rank equivalent (air commodore and above). Officers entitled to wear aiguillettes or the
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, AVMs and above, the Director of Nursing Services, and those officers assigned to certain one-star posts, wear plain blue shoulder boards when in No 1 Service Dress. AVMs and above and those officers assigned to the one-star posts of commandant RAFC Cranwell, Air Officer Wales and Air Officer Scotland wear distinctive unranked ceremonial shoulder boards when in No 1A (ceremonial day) dress. If these officers wear a greatcoat, gold ranked shoulder straps in Crombie material are used. Marshals of the Royal Air Force have a distinctive set of shoulder boards with greater decoration.


Rank titles

It was initially proposed that each RAF officer rank would be either the equivalent army rank (used by the
Royal Flying Corps The Royal Flying Corps (RFC) was the air arm of the British Army before and during the First World War until it merged with the Royal Naval Air Service on 1 April 1918 to form the Royal Air Force. During the early part of the war, the RFC sup ...
) or the naval rank (used by the
Royal Naval Air Service The Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) was the air arm of the Royal Navy, under the direction of the Admiralty (United Kingdom), Admiralty's Air Department, and existed formally from 1 July 1914 to 1 April 1918, when it was merged with the British ...
(RNAS)). However, when the Royal Navy and British Army were consulted they made differing objections: the navy was unhappy that another service might use the names of its higher ranks, such as admiral, and the army objected to the RAF sharing the ranks assigned to junior officers. This resulted in a second proposed system, which made frequent use of the
neologism In linguistics, a neologism (; also known as a coinage) is any newly formed word, term, or phrase that has achieved popular or institutional recognition and is becoming accepted into mainstream language. Most definitively, a word can be considered ...
ardian, which was derived from the
Gaelic Gaelic (pronounced for Irish Gaelic and for Scots Gaelic) is an adjective that means "pertaining to the Gaels". It may refer to: Languages * Gaelic languages or Goidelic languages, a linguistic group that is one of the two branches of the Insul ...
''ard'' "chief" and ''eun'' "bird". Under this proposal the names were to have been: ''ensign'', ''lieutenant'', ''flight leader'', ''squadron leader'', ''reeve'', ''banneret'', ''fourth ardian'', ''third ardian'', ''second ardian'', ''ardian'' and ''air marshal''. A further proposal was: ''ensign'', ''lieutenant'', ''flight-leader'', ''squadron-leader'', ''wing-leader'', ''leader'', ''flight ardian'', ''squadron ardian'', ''wing ardian'', ''ardian'', ''air marshal''. However, this system was rejected within the RAF, due in part to dislike of the neologism ardian. On 1 August 1919,
Air Ministry The Air Ministry was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force and civil aviation that existed from 1918 to 1964. It was under the political authority of the ...
''Weekly Order 973'' introduced the official rank titles for RAF officers. Initially, the highest
air officer An air officer is an air force officer of the rank of air commodore or higher. Such officers may be termed "officers of air rank". While the term originated in the Royal Air Force, air officers are also to be found in many Commonwealth of Natio ...
rank was named ''marshal of the air''. However, a few days after this was promulgated, it was changed to ''marshal of the Royal Air Force''; the original name was rejected by
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, who believed it was as useless as "Admiral of the Atlantic" These were often modified versions of Royal Navy terms and in many cases represented a continuation of particular RNAS appointment titles, i.e. a role/command specific to a particular rank. For example, the new RAF rank of ''flight lieutenant'' had previously been the name of an RNAS appointment, held only by qualified pilots with the naval rank of lieutenant; a RNAS
observer An observer is one who engages in observation or in watching an experiment. Observer may also refer to: Fiction * ''Observer'' (novel), a 2023 science fiction novel by Robert Lanza and Nancy Kress * ''Observer'' (video game), a cyberpunk horr ...
with the same rank was instead known as an ''observer lieutenant''. The RAF rank of ''squadron leader'' was derived from an RNAS appointment, ''squadron commander'', which had been held by either a naval lieutenant-commander or lieutenant.


Composite braid

RAF officers typically wear composite braid rank slides with their working and operational uniforms. Composite braid consists of a single piece of fabric, where the "background" between the rank rings is made from blue-grey or olive green material. Composite braid rank slides are often referred to as "bar-code" in RAF slang.


Distinction between ranks and appointments

Many RAF ranks do not imply the appointment or duties of an officer. For example, a pilot officer may well not be trained to pilot an aircraft. In fact, pilots skip the rank of pilot officer and go from officer cadet to flying officer on graduation from officer training school at RAF Cranwell. A squadron leader does not necessarily command a squadron, nor a wing commander necessarily command a wing, nor a group captain command a group. A group will usually be commanded by an AVM. 'Flying' wings will be commanded by a group captain, with ground-based wings commanded by a wing commander. 'Flying' squadrons are commanded by wing commanders, and ground-based squadrons are typically commanded by squadron leaders.


RAF Air Cadets (Air Training Corps and Combined Cadet Force)

The majority of officers in the Royal Air Force Air Cadets (the
Air Training Corps The Air Training Corps (ATC) is a British Youth organisations in the United Kingdom, volunteer youth organisation; aligned to, and fostering the knowledge and learning of military values, primarily focusing on military aviation. Part of the ...
and the RAF section of the
Combined Cadet Force The Combined Cadet Force (CCF) is a youth organisation in the United Kingdom, sponsored by the Ministry of Defence (MOD), which operates in schools, sub divided into Royal Navy, Royal Marines, Army and Royal Air Force sections. Its aim is to ...
) are volunteers commissioned into RAF Air Cadets and then appointed to service with the Air Training Corps or Combined Cadet Force (RAF). They are no longer Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve (Training Branch) (RAFVR(T)) commissioned officers. They are identified by the gold badge stating: "RAFAC" on the lapels of the No. 1 uniform, and in others forms of dress "RAF Air Cadets" embroidered underneath the rank insignia, in a manner similar to
RAF Regiment The Royal Air Force Regiment (RAF Regiment) is part of the Royal Air Force and functions as a specialist corps. Founded by Royal Warrant in 1942, the Corps carries-out security tasks relating to the protection of assets and personnel dedicated ...
rank slides. Volunteer officers who are members of an air experience flight (AEF) and who are pilots of aircraft providing air experience flying to air cadets and university air squadrons (UAS) continue to hold a VR(UAS) commission. RAF Air Cadets officers use the rank system identical to the regular RAF, but the highest substantive rank is Flying Officer. Other senior ranked appointments are generally full-time staff positions (such as regional commandants and commandant air cadets) held by regular and reserve (RAFR/FTRS) RAF officers. In certain circumstances, honorary appointments within the RAF Air Cadets may be made, however the rank may vary. After the
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, new rank insignia with
King Charles III Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. Charles was born at Buckingham Palace during the reign of his maternal grandfather, King George VI, and ...
's
Royal Cypher In modern heraldry, a royal cypher is a monogram or monogram-like device of a country's reigning Monarch, sovereign, typically consisting of the initials of the monarch's name and title, sometimes interwoven and often surmounted by a Crown (heral ...
is expected to be created.


Timeline of changes


See also

*
Aircrew brevet An aircrew flying badge (unofficially and incorrectly known as an aircrew brevet – which is actually French for a diploma or certificate) is the badge worn on the left breast, above any medal ribbons, by qualified aircrew in the Royal Air For ...
* Comparative military ranks of World War I * Comparative military ranks of World War II *
Comparative military ranks This article is a list of various nations' armed forces ranking designations. Comparisons are made between the different systems used by nations to categorize the hierarchy of an armed force compared to another. Several of these lists mention '' ...
* List of Royal Air Force members *
Military rank Military ranks is a system of hierarchy, hierarchical relationships within armed forces, police, Intelligence agency, intelligence agencies, paramilitary groups, and other institutions organized along military organisation , military lines, such ...
* RAF other ranks * Ranks and insignia of officers in NATO air forces *
Ranks of the cadet forces of the United Kingdom The following table displays the ranks of the Community Cadet Forces (Army Cadet Force, the Sea Cadets (United Kingdom), Sea Cadet Corps, and the Air Training Corps), the Combined Cadet Force, the Volunteer Cadet Corps (RMVCC and RNVCC). This tabl ...
* Royal Observer Corps ranks * Women's Auxiliary Air Force ranks


Notes


References


General references

* Hobart, Malcolm. ''Badges and Uniforms of the Royal Air Force''. London/Barnsley, England: Leo Cooper/Pen & Sword Books Ltd., 2000. .


External links


RAF Ranks
at the official website of the RAF {{Military ranks by country British military insignia