* RAPTOR reconnaissance pod carried by RAF Tornados

Panavia Tornados landing at RAF Lossiemouth

In April 1994, 208 Squadron was disbanded and was replaced by 617 Squadron, which transferred with their Tornados from RAF Marham in Norfolk.

This line-up continued until July 2000, when the Jaguars left for RAF Coltishall in Norfolk ; however, with the increase in size of XV ( Reserve ) Squadron in 1999 following the closure of the Tri-national Tornado Training Establishment at RAF Cottesmore, the arrival of the Tornados of 14 Squadron from RAF Brüggen in January 2001, RAF Lossiemouth has become the busiest fast-jet station in the Royal Air Force.

Since June 2007 the Typhoons of No. 3 ( F ) Squadron have formed part of air defence of the UK along with RAF Leeming near Northallerton in North Yorkshire and RAF Leuchars near St Andrews, Fife, Scotland, both of which were equipped with Tornado F3 fighters but Leeming lost its last Tornados in 2008 with the disbandment of 25 Squadron and its concentration on being the RAF's communications hub.

A formal ceremony at RAF Brüggen on June 15, 2001 officially ended a continuous RAF presence in Germany since the Second World War ; on July 17 the squadron completed its move to RAF Marham and all of the remaining Tornados had left by September 4, 2001.

A formal ceremony on 15 June officially ended a continuous Royal Air Force presence in Germany since World War II and all of the remaining Tornados had left for RAF Marham by 4 September 2001.

The squadron disbanded on 4 April 2008, its Tornados relocating to RAF Leuchars to join the remaining active Tornado F3 squadrons stationed there.

Tornados were able to carry two WE. 177 nuclear bombs, and the RAF staff expected that there would be enough survivors of the conventional war phase to deliver an increased stock of eighteen bombs.

* RAF Tornados lock on latest guided munition

In the early 1990s, the Group's frontline force consisted of Nos 56 and 74 Squadrons flying Phantoms from RAF Wattisham, No. 5 and No. 29 Squadrons flying Panavia Tornados from RAF Coningsby, Nos 11, 23, and 25 Squadrons flying Panavia Tornados from RAF Leeming, and No. 43 and No. 111 Squadrons at RAF Leuchars.

UK production is now concentrated at Gaydon on the former RAF V-bomber airfield.

Skyflash entered service with the Royal Air Force ( RAF ) on their Phantom FG. 1 / FGR. 2 in 1976, and later on the Tornado F3.

In the early 1960s, the UK was withdrawing its military presence from the Indian Ocean area, not including the base at RAF Gan to the north of Diego Garcia in the Maldives ( which remained open until 1976 ), and agreed to permit the US to establish a Naval Communication Station on one of its island territories there.

Meanwhile, the Royal Air Force ( RAF ) made heavy air attacks on the Axis units.

Attacks on Scapa Flow and Rosyth gave RAF fighters their first successes downing bombers in the Firth of Forth and East Lothian.

Gun camera film shows tracer ammunition from a Supermarine Spitfire Mark I of No. 609 Squadron RAF, flown by Flight Lieutenant J H G McArthur, hitting a Heinkel He 111 on its starboard quarter.

It was not until the concluding months of 1943 that the only realized attempt to build a " true four engined " version of the A-series He 177, the He 177B emerged with only three airworthy prototypes produced by early 1944, some three years after the first flights of the Avro Lancaster prototypes, the most commonly encountered RAF bomber pounding Germany on strategic night raids from 1942 to the end of the war in Europe.

Inevitably, both the Bomber B and Amerika Bomber programs were victims of the continued emphasis of the Wehrmacht's insistence for the Luftwaffe to support the Army as its primary mission, as well as the increasingly devastating results of the RAF Bomber Command at night, and by 1943 the USAAF's Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces ' heavy bomber raids by daylight on the German aviation industry, which catastrophically diminished the Third Reich's overall aviation production capacity later in World War II.

Deliveries of new aircraft were insufficient to meet the drain on resources ; the Luftwaffe, unlike the RAF, was failing to expand its pilot and aircraft numbers.

The RAF also used LORAN on raids beyond the range of GEE.

Despite these warnings, about one vehicle each month is stranded on the causeway, requiring rescue by either Seahouses Royal National Lifeboat Institution lifeboat or RAF helicopter.

It is built on the land formerly occupied by the RAF Luqa air base.

* 1943 – World War II: the Dambuster Raids by No. 617 Squadron RAF on German dams.

He was in time for the bombing of Germany, serving on the Handley Page Halifax with No. 76 Squadron RAF, initially at RAF Breighton and then at RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor.

He went on to join Robert Atkin's Shakespearean company in Regent's Park, London, until he was called up for service in the RAF.

He was appearing in a Shakespearean play in doublet and hose in the open-air theatre in London's Hyde Park when two RAF MPs marched on stage and arrested him for desertion.

The RAF bombing raid on the night of 16 January 1944, destroyed much of the city.

Beginning in August 1940, the German Luftwaffe began a series of concentrated aerial attacks ( designated Unternehmen Adlerangriff or Operation Eagle Attack ) on targets throughout the United Kingdom in an attempt to destroy the RAF ( Royal Air Force ) and establish air superiority over Great Britain.

Others argue the Luftwaffe achieved little in the air battle and the RAF was not on the verge of collapse, as often claimed.

In the 1980s, the UK's air traffic control radar processing was conducted on a PDP 11 / 34 system known as PRDS-Processed Radar Display System at RAF West Drayton.

* North American P-51D on display at the RAF Museum, London

But RAF organisation and outlook were also partly modeled on the Uruguayan Tupamaros movement, which had developed as an urban resistance movement, effectively inverting Che Guevara's Mao-like concept of a peasant or rural-based guerrilla war and instead situating the struggle in the metropole or cities.

The airfield was later named RAF Lindholme and is now the location of the aforementioned prison.

Rear view of Blue Steel missile at RAF Cosford aerospace museum, showing the twin-chamber " Stentor " rocket motor

*** Air-to-air missile: 2 × AIM-9 Sidewinder ( non-standard in RAF service, only mounted on the MR2 during the Falklands War )

The Common Anti-Air Modular Missile ( CAMM ), would share components with the ASRAAM missile in service with the RAF.

The next month, the first missile to be removed from an operational unit and sent to Vandenberg AFB for confidence firing arrived from a Thor IRBM squadron ( 98th RAF Strategic Missile Squadron ) in the United Kingdom.

Messerschmitt " Enzian " missile ( at the background in yellow and red ) displayed at RAF museum Cosford

* A RAF Panavia Tornado is brought down by " friendly fire " by a US Patriot missile battery.

The British proceeded on their own, and the missile was introduced into RAF service in 1998.

It is scheduled to enter service for the first time with the RAF in 2015 and with the Swedish Air Force as early as 2013, making the SwAF the first operator of the missile.

The stealthy missile has a range in excess of, is powered by a turbojet at Mach 0. 8 and can be carried by the RAF Tornado GR4, Saab Gripen, Italian Tornado IDS, Dassault Mirage 2000 and Dassault Rafale aircraft.

To give improved electronic countermeasures ( ECM ) against Argentine defences, which were known to include Tigercat missile and radar-controlled anti-aircraft guns, Dash 10 pods from Blackburn Buccaneer aircraft at RAF Honington were fitted to the wings on improvised pylons.

The Common Anti-Air Modular Missile ( CAMM ), would share components with the ASRAAM missile in service with the RAF.

The Bristol Bloodhound is a British surface-to-air missile developed during the 1950s as the UK's main air defence weapon, and was in large-scale service with the Royal Air Force ( RAF ) and the forces of four other countries.

I deployment consisted of eight missile sites: RAF Dunholme Lodge, RAF Watton, RAF Marham, RAF Rattlesden, RAF Woolfox Lodge, RAF Carnaby, RAF Warboys, RAF Breighton and RAF Misson with a trial site at RAF North Coates.

In 1993 the squadron began the changeover to anti-shipping and by 1994 was operating from RAF Lossiemouth assigned to SACLANT with the Tornado GR4B with the Sea Eagle missile.