List of Fleet Air Arm aircraft squadrons
Fleet Air Arm Squadron List / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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With the formation of the Fleet Air Arm in 1924, as a part of the Royal Air Force, blocks of squadron numbers were used. Nos. 401-439 were Fleet Fighter / Spotter Flights, assigned to Royal Navy battleships and cruisers.[1] Nos. 440-459 were Fleet Reconnaissance Flights, many later becoming Fleet Spotter Reconnaissance Flights, and No. 460 onwards, as Fleet Torpedo Flights, later becoming Torpedo Bomber Flights.[2]
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In 1936 some of these were renumbered in the 700 series and this was retained when the Admiralty regained full control of the Fleet Air Arm in 1939. Nos. 700-749 were for catapult flights and squadrons, but eventually these all merged into 700 Naval Air Squadron, leaving nos. 701-710 for amphibian and floatplane squadrons from 1943 onwards. Nos. 750-799, were assigned for training and ancillary squadrons (in contrast to the RAF practice of not assigning squadron numbers to training units).[1]
Front line combat squadrons were nos. 800-899 and broken down into categories:[2] nos. 800-809 for fighter squadrons, nos. 810-819 for torpedo bomber squadrons, later torpedo spotter reconnaissance (TSR), and torpedo bomber reconnaissance (TBR), squadrons, nos. 820-859 were initially spotter reconnaissance squadrons, later becoming TSR and, finally, TBR squadrons. Originally, TBR squadrons included 860-869, but these were assigned to Dutch-manned and then Royal Netherlands Navy squadrons. Nos. 870-899 were initially for single-seat fighter squadrons, but 870-879 were later assigned to Royal Canadian Navy squadrons. As these numbers ran out, new series prefixed by '1' were allocated. Leaving aside unused blocks, nos. 1700-1749 became torpedo bomber reconnaissance squadrons and two-seat fighter squadrons were nos. 1770-1799. Dive bomber squadrons were nos. 1810-1829 and nos. 1830-1899 were for single-seat fighter squadrons.[3]