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We are now long past the 100 year anniversary of Lieutenant Eugene Gerrard RMLI qualifying for his pilot's certificate (certificate number 76) on 2nd May 1911, there are many Royal Marines who have followed him to the skies during the intervening years.
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Through the years Royal Marines have flown in every conflict from World War I to the Second Gulf War to Afghanistan and beyond. Wearing both Naval Flying Wings and Army Flying Wings they have flown most aircraft from fixed wing to rotary wing , piston-engine to modern jet fighters. Today Royal Marines fly virtually every aircraft operated by the Royal Navy, both fixed wing and rotary wing, and continue to serve in all corners of the globe.
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This web site is designed to provide a historical reference of those Royal Marines and the part they have played in the history of aviation. It is a constantly evolving website as more information is submitted and reliant on former Royal Marine aviators to submit their histories and pcitures. If you are a Royal Marine Aviator, serving or retired, please check the 'Contact' page. Your help is needed to ensure that the site continues to grow and becomes a record of what the Royal Marines have achieved in aviation since Lt Gerrard took to the skies over a century ago.
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The information on the early Royal Marine aviators is taken from Alan Marsh's 1980 book entitled 'Flying Marines.'
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Alan Marsh's work has been superbly supplemented by Colonel Michael Reece who produced the updated version 'Flying Royal Marines' in 2012 (ISBN 978-0-908123-04-6) using data from the Flying Marines website and other sources.
Flying Royal Marines by Michael Reece
The Flying Marines website was first started by James Dresner back in 2007 when he was unable to find much information available on the history of Royal Marine aviation except for Alan Marsh's Flying Marines book which finished in 1979. With a lot of support he built a small cadre of enthusiastic ex-RM aviators who provided great input for the website.
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Sadly it turned out that there weren't enough hours in the day to keep the website up to date with a lot of the information that was coming in. The design of the website was also fairly basic which meant that a lot of time would be need to do a complete redesign. However, in the meantime Colonel Michael Reece did an amazing job in compiling the updated version of the Flying Royal Marines book and John Gilbert continued to conduct in depth research.
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After taking the website down in 2016 as it was in need of serious attention, finally James got the time to redesign the website during the Coronavirus pandemic of 2020 and the new and improved Flying Marines website was re-launched in April 2020.
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Flying Marines
A History of Royal Marines Aviation
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