Ninety years

ZUI this article from the MoD Defence News:

Events have been taking place around the UK today, Tuesday 1 April 2008, to celebrate 90 years since the formation of the Royal Air Force.

Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy joined dignitaries and serving military and civilian personnel outside the MOD's headquarters building on London's Victoria Embankment. The assembled crowds watched a spectacular fly-past by the world famous Red Arrows, who flew in formation with four Typhoon aircraft along the River Thames to the London Eye giving Londoners the chance to see the fly-past, the first time this has been done.

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Elsewhere personnel at RAF Stations around the country also marked the 90th anniversary. In Yorkshire RAF Linton-on-Ouse played its part at York Minster with a flypast by a formation of nine Tucanos.

Station commander Group Captain Mark Hopkins took the salute before performing the ceremony of turning the page of the Book of Remembrance which contains the names of over 18,000 airmen from over 15 countries who died on wartime missions from RAF airfields in Yorkshire and the North East. Gp Capt Hopkins said:

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The events to mark the 90th anniversary began over the weekend with the unveiling of a Westminster City Council Green Plaque at the site of the RAF's first headquarters in The Strand, Central London. A special Service of Commemoration was held at the Central Church of the RAF, St Clement Danes, near the Royal Courts of Justice, also in the Strand and a number of veterans marched to mark the occasion.

The parade before the annual celebration and thanksgiving church service at St Clement Danes, London

Retired Squadron Leader Ian Blair DFM (right) and Senior Aircraftman Mark Lount stand under the wing of the RAF Museum's gate guardian Spitfire

Royal Air Force photographs © Crown Copyright/MOD 2008.