RAF Transport Aircraft

From their modest origins with BE.2c and Vickers Victoria biplanes delivering food and ammunition in the Mesopotamian deserts to the massive Globe masters delivering hardware in the same theatre a century later, transport aircraft have played a key role in Britain’s wars. It was the Cold War that saw transport aircraft become necessary war-fighting equipment. When the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq began, the RAF’s transport fleet was ready, and with the new model Hercules, and the Airbus Voyager and Atlas, Britain’s armed forces have a transport force second to none. With over 130 photographs, this book describes the evolution of the aircraft that provided the airlift capacity for Britain’s armed forces wherever they served, and as the 2021 Operation Pitting showed, transport aircraft are still vital.