To mark the centenary of the Royal Air Force, the world’s first independent air force, the (UK) Ministry of Defence have brought together a series of impressive photographs, showing the development of the Service, and its people, across the years. The images in the collection, offer an amazing insight into the RAF, showing snapshots of the people and equipment that have enabled successful operations from the air over the last century.

Harland Quarrington the MOD’s Chief Photographer offered his thoughts: ‘This was truly a challenging but hugely rewarding task, often it proved massively difficult to identify the history of an image. In many cases a tail number, or Squadron crest would be the only clues, but we stuck at it and with the help of our RAF friends managed to finalise this wonderful package – we are very proud of the results and of the Royal Air Force.’

Here we publish with grateful thanks to the MOD media service and the Air Historical Branch a representative selection of the pictures showing the first half century of the RAF.