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How the RFC combined Army and naval aviation in 1912

The 1912 Royal Flying Corps absorbed early Army and Admiralty aviation, then organized military and naval wings around a joint flying school.

Notes

The institutional history begins with the Committee of Imperial Defence and the Royal Warrant of 13 April 1912 that constituted the Royal Flying Corps. The RFC absorbed both the Admiralty's early air detachment and the Royal Engineers' Air Battalion. It retained separate military and naval wings while creating the Central Flying School as a shared training institution. The school opened in June 1912 with Army and Navy personnel under Captain Godfrey Paine, showing that British service aviation initially had substantial institutional overlap.