Ranks and insignia of the officers of the RAF
officer ranks of the Royal Air Force
The officer ranks of the Royal Air Force, as they are today, were introduced in 1919. Prior to that Army ranks were used.
Insignia
Uniform insignia
Masthead distinguishing flags
Officers of the rank of squadron leader and above in command of a unit may fly a 3 ft × 2 ft (0.91 m × 0.61 m) distinguishing flag at the masthead of the flagstaff at the unit headquarters.
Motor car insignia
Star plates
Motor cars carrying officers of air rank (and their equivalents in the Royal Navy, Royal Marines and British Army) on official duties may bear a star plate, with the number of stars reflecting the rank of the officer. The plates must be covered when the officer is not in the vehicle. The colour of the star plate is air force blue for officers of the RAF, although RAF officers in joint service appointments use a star plate in the joint service colours, which consists of three vertical bands of royal blue, red and air force blue.
Car flags
RAF officers in certain appointments may fly a 12 in × 6 in (300 mm × 150 mm) flag appropriate to their position from the front of the bonnet of their car when on official duties and it is necessary for the car or its occupant to be recognised. The flag is not normally used on long journeys but may be hoisted when close to the destination. In foreign and Commonwealth countries, officers must seek the permission of its British ambassador or high commissioner in order to use the car flag.
Origins
Lieutenant General David Henderson originally proposed that Royal Air Force officers use a combination of British Army and Royal Navy ranks.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Ranks and insignia of the officers of the RAF” is officer ranks of the Royal Air Force. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Ranks, insignia and officers, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “officer ranks of the Royal Air Force” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7275704. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1919.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ranks and insignia of the officers of the RAF” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.