X-Nico

11 unusual facts about Air Ministry


Amyas Borton

On 1 November 1926, Borton was appointed Director of Personal Services at the Air Ministry in succession to Air Vice-Marshal Longcroft.

Automatic Gun-Laying Turret

The system, known as TR3548, was devised by a team led by Dr Philip Dee and designed under the aegis of chief designer Dr Alan Hodgkin, after receiving a request from the Air Ministry for such a system in early 1943.

Claude Liardet

In 1941 Liardet was appointed Inspector General of Aerodrome Defence and Director General of Ground Defence at the Air Ministry.

Death ray

Harry Grindell-Matthews tried to sell what he reported to be a death ray to the British Air Ministry in 1924.

Francis Shelmerdine

After the War, Shelmerdine took up duties at the new Air Ministry, where he was the Controller of Aerodromes and Licences.

George Bingham, 6th Earl of Lucan

From 1942 to 1945 he was Deputy Director for Ground Defence in the Air Ministry.

Hillington, Scotland

Under a plan managed by the Air Ministry, the Shadow factory plan was managed by industrialist Herbert Austin, with the aim to create nine new factories, and invest in enabling existing motor vehicle manufacturing plants to expand capacity and make the switch to aircraft production more easy.

Maurice Drummond

After the War he was again an AAG from 1920 to 1923 before serving as Director (Staff Duties) at the Air Ministry from 1923 to 1927.

Noble Frankland

From 1948 until 1951 he worked at the Air Historical Branch of the Air Ministry, and received his DPhil from Oxford in April 1951.

Paul Farnes

After the war Farnes became a Liaison Officer for training centres with the Air Ministry.

Yvonne Baseden

On her arrival at Euston, there was no one to meet her, so she called the Air Ministry and the duty officer arranged for Vera Atkins to meet her.


Albert Hugh Smith

During World War II, he enlisted in the RAF as an intelligence officer and in 1941 joined the Scientific Intelligence Unit of the Air Ministry under R V Jones, ending with the rank of Wing Commander.

Blackburn B-3

In 1930, the British Air Ministry issued Specification M.1/30 for a carrier-based torpedo bomber to replace the Ripon, to be powered by the Rolls-Royce Buzzard or Armstrong Siddeley Leopard engines.

Boulton Paul P.120

It was produced for the Air Ministry to specification E.27/49 and differed from the P.111 in having a swept fin and rudder with horizontal tail surfaces high on the fin to improve longitudinal and directional stability.

Defence of the Reich

This organisation, which drew membership from United States Strategic Air Forces in Europe (USSTAF), the British Air Ministry, and the Ministry of Economic Warfare, evaluated methods of attack and checked data from the continent concerning German oil difficulties.

Gloster Goldfinch

In January 1926 the Air Ministry funded Gloster Aircraft to produce an all-metal version of their Gamecock for a high altitude fighter role, hence requiring a supercharged engine.

Gyrodyne

In Britain, Dr. James Allan Jamieson Bennett, Chief Engineer of the Cierva Autogiro Company, in 1936 conceived an intermediate type of rotorcraft, which he named "gyrodyne" and which was tendered to the British Government in response to an Air Ministry specification.

Heneage Wheeler

In 1921, under the Air Ministry and Royal Aeronautical Society notices in Flight magazine there was noted the engagement of "Major Heneage Gibbes Wheeler, late R.A.F, of Bexhill-on-Sea" to a "Florence Hayes of St Louis, U.S.A" .

Parnall

The final Parnall aircraft was an open two-seater trainer derivative of the Heck to Air Ministry Specification T.1/37 named the Parnall 382, later the Heck III.

Rolls-Royce Mustang Mk.X

Air Ministry official, Air Chief Marshal Sir Wilfrid Freeman (Chief Executive at the Ministry of Aircraft Production) lobbied vociferously for Merlin-powered Mustangs, insisting two of the five experimental Mustang Mk Xs be handed over to Carl Spaatz for trials and evaluation by the U.S. Eighth Air Force in Britain.

United Kingdom military aircraft serials

A unified serial number system, maintained by the Air Ministry (AM), and its successor the Ministry of Defence (MoD), is used for aircraft operated by the Royal Air Force (RAF), Fleet Air Arm (FAA) and Army Air Corps (AAC).