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Aircraft Markings When reformed after the first world war, the Squadron’s silver Snipes were only distinguished by coloured fins, but on return from Turkey, as part of the home defence force in the 1920s and re-equipped with Grebes, two parallel black stripes painted across the top wings and also along the fuselage sides became the Squadron marking. The same scheme was also used on Siskins and Furies (on which the fuselage stripes tapered to a point after the roundel under the tail plane) and may have adorned Gladiators until the Munich crisis of 1938, when the aircraft were camouflaged and the unit code ‘RX’ was introduced. In September 1939 the Blenheims were recoded ‘ZK’, which was used on all subsequent Squadron aircraft until 1950. The parallel black stripes had reappeared in miniature form on the fin and on the nose of Mosquito 36s in 1949. In 1950 code letters were discontinued and the marking scheme was formalised on the Vampire as hollow black rectangles on each side of the boom roundels. With Meteors this was changed to a silver rectangle lined top and bottom with a black bar, thus reproducing as closely as possible the pre-war marking. The marking moved to the top of the fin on Javelins, which also carried a unit badge superimposed on the rectangle. Later, the badge became dominant, splitting a smaller rectangle into two parts above a large individual letter which was repeated on the sides and the nose. Bloodhound missiles were unmarked, certainly during the squadron's time in Germany. The Tornados have the silver rectangle lined with the black bars on top of the fin. Underneath a hawk on a gauntlet is painted. All the Squadron aircraft are code in the ‘F’ series, FA-FL. FO was used during 1991-92 as the Tornado F3 Display Aircraft and had a special black and silver paint scheme.
Standard: A new standard was presented by Air Chief Marshall Sir Thomas Kennedy KCB AFT ADC Air Member for Personnel at Wyton on 15 May 1984 in the presence of Marshall of the Royal Air Force Sir William Dickson GCB KBE DSO AFC. The old standard was laid up in Ely Cathedral on 21 Jun 1984. Battle Honours:
* Denotes Battle Honours emblazoned on Standard
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