The Jet Age, Cold war and Present
The Jet Age
Jet Aircraft had began to appear towards the end of WWII. The German Me-262 was the first operation jet fighter and saw active service towards the end of WWII but was introduced to late in the war to make much difference. The first british jet fighter was the Gloster Meteor, it became the RAF's primary jet fighter in the period immediately after the war.(Military Factory 2003). Other Jet Aircraft also began entering service with the RAF, such as the Vampire (fighter aircraft) and Venom (ground attack based very similar to the Vampire).
In the 1950s two of the RAFs and britians most succesful jet aircraft entered service. The Hawker Hunter and the English Electric Canberra.
The Hawker Hunter was a fighter aircraft which entered service with Fighter Command in 1954 and is widley regarded as one of the best subsonic fighter jets built (Chant 1993). The Hunter replaced the Meteor and Vampire as the RAF's frontline fighter. And although replaced by the supersonic Lightning in the 1970s in the interceptor role, the Hunter saw service with the RAF up until 1994 when the last examples were retired from service.
The English Electric Canberra is a twin engined bomber, and was the RAF's first jet bomber. The Canberra was even more succesful that the Hunter, it was exported to the USA where it was built under licence as the B57 Night Intruder. The Canberra gave the RAF a strategic jet bomber at a time when the Cold War was beginning to heat up. The photo reconnasiance version of the Canberra the PR9 (the prototype of which first flew in 1955) is still in service with the RAF today operating in a tatical reconnaissance role (RAF2004).
Airlift
The RAF in the period immediately afer the war was also heavily involved in airlift, in particular the berlin airlift (Gunston 1992).
The Cold War
In 1957 the role of the RAF changed dramatically with the idea of a nuclear deterrent (Chant 1993). The basic principle behind a nuclear deterrent is that if two countries have nuclear weapons, which are ready to be used at a moments notice, and are capable of withstanding or escaping an intial surprise attack by the other country then mutually assured destruction is likely. The RAF was tasked with carrying the UK s Nuclear deterrent, and to carry it a new generation of strategic bombers were built.
Three special bombers were constrcuted to carry the UKs Nuclear weapons, collectively they were known as the V-bombers. The three bombers were the Valient, which entered service in 1951, the Victor which entered service in 1956 and the Vulcan which entered service in 1960 (Global Security 2005). All three could operate either as conventional bombers or carry nuclear pay loads. Intially the nuclear weapons where free fall bombs, but these were replaced by missiles such as Blue Steel.
The V-force was relatively short lived, they had been designed as high level high cruise speed nuclear bombers, designed to out run the fighters and fly higher than the anti aircraft missiles. However with improvements in Surface to Air missiles, they became vunerable at high level and had to switch to low level. The principle of low level flying is that the aircraft uses the terrain to mask its approach, to hide from the opponents RADAR. Low level flying took its toll on the Valiant and it was retired from service in 1964 (Global Security 2005).
The end of the V-force as a nuclear deterrent came in 1968 when the USA offerred the Polaris sub launched missile (Chant 1993).
The Victor and Vulcan continued to serve, although eventually the Victor as a bomber was phased out and it was solely operated as a tanker, the last squadron of Victors were operated by No. 55 Sqn out of RAF Marham. During the Falklands war the Vulcan was used as a conventional bomber supported by the Victor tanker flying non stop round trips from the Acension Islands to the Falklands Islands. The Vulcan was retired from service in 1984 (Thunder and Lightnings 2004). The Victor had a longer life as a airbourne tanker and was eventually withdrawn from service in 1993 after seeing service in the first Gulf War I.
Present
Today the RAF is a different force to that of the Cold War era RAF. The RAF currently comprises two commands - Strike Command and Training and Personnel and Training Command.
Strike Command comprises three groups, Nos 1, 2 and 3, each with its own responsibilty.
No 1 Group - Air Combat Group, flys the fast Jets of the RAF such as the Tornado, Jaguar, Harrier, and Typhoon.
No 2 Group - Air Combat Support Group - supplies the transport capability, air to air refuelling capability and RAF Regiment. It flys the TriStar, VC-10, C17
No 3 Group - Battle Management Group- operates the Sentry Airbourne Warning and Control System aircraft (AWACS) and Nimrod martime reconnaissance.
(RAF 2004b)