Aviation Specials Magazine British Army Aviation Édition spéciale

The British Army can justifiably lay claim to be the first branch of the nation’s military to dabble with flight. Experiments with gas balloons began as early as 1863 and the War Office created a dedicated Balloon Section in 1890. The first of the ‘flying soldiers’ to qualify as a pilot of a powered aircraft was Capt Bertram Dickson (in April 1910) and British Army pilots formed the foundations of what would become the Royal Flying Corps before and during the Great War.

Although Army Co-Operation duties were undertaken by RAF pilots during the interwar years, Army aviators came to the fore once again during World War Two when the Glider Pilot Regiment and Air Observation Post squadrons proved vital in changing the course of the conflict. The Army Air Corps (AAC) fought for its survival in the post-war years but in 1957 it was reformed as a helicopter and fixed wing fighting force. Since then, the men and machines of the AAC have proved invaluable in conflicts as far away as Malaya, the Balkans, the Gulf and Libya and as close to home as Northern Ireland.

Today, more than 150 years since those first tentative balloon flights, the AAC is a formidable fighting force. These pages tell the story of some of the Corps’ finest moments and most memorable machines.

Stephen Bridgewater