Battle of Britain Memorial Flight

In the years immediately following World War Two it became traditional for a Spitfire and Hurricane to lead the Victory Day flypast over London. From that event there grew the idea to form an historic collection of flyable aircraft, initially to commemorate the RAF’s major battle honour, The Battle of Britain, and latterly with broadened scope, to commemorate the RAF’s involvement in all the campaigns of WWII. Thus in 1957 the Historic Aircraft Flight was formed at Biggin Hill in what, even then, had become a predominantly jet-powered Air Force. As can be seen from the following chronology, the Flight experienced variable fortune before emerging in its current form as one of the world’s best-known historic aircraft collections, maintaining in airworthy condition a Lancaster, a Dakota, five Spitfires, two Hurricanes and two Chipmunks.

Since its inception in 1957, the aircrew on the Flight have been drawn from volunteers, all of whom perform their primary duties on such front-line types as Typhoon, Jaguar and Boeing E3D AWACs or on training aircraft such as the Super King Air. The one exception is the Officer Commanding for whom the demands of overseeing operations, administration and engineering on the Flight dictate that he is employed full-time with the BBMF. In those tasks, and particularly in respect of display-related planning, the OC is assisted by a Retired Officer as the Flight’s Operations Officer/Adjutant, a Public Relations Officer, an Operations Assistant and a civilian Administrative Assistant.

In the early years engineers, like the aircrew, made themselves available largely on a voluntary, self-help basis, albeit they were properly qualified in the various aspects of the aircraft. With the expansion of the fleet in the mid-1970s, engineering was placed on a more formal basis and the team now consists of 25 full-time ground crew personnel led by a Warrant Officer Engineering Officer. These personnel handle all aspects of the maintenance of the BBMF’s fleet of 11 historic aircraft both at Coningsby and out on the display circuit with the exception of major (deep-strip) servicing which is usually contracted out to industry.

Records show that for many years after its formation in 1957, the Flight conducted relatively low-key operations; typically making 50-60 appearances per season, a situation that continued into the mid-1960s. By 1992 participation was up to 150 appearances, growing to 200 in 1995 and exceeding 500 in 1996. Since 2003 the Flight has been tasked for over 700 individual aircraft appearances during each year’s display season and this is now considered the norm. The demand for appearances by the BBMF’s aircraft shows no sign of decline and indeed appears to be increasing. In 2006 the BBMF were tasked with 783 individual appearances at 410 separate events. These events included 98 air displays and 312 flypasts of various sizes ranging from the Queen’s 80th Birthday Flypast over London through commemorative flypasts for veterans to small village fetes. The Flight’s aircraft appeared in front of an estimated total audience of 6 million people.

For more information on the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight visit the
Battle of Britain Memorial Flight

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