Table of Contents
Griffin Books

Preface Pages v to xiii

1. Type Summary 1-18

2. G-CY Register 193-200

3. Numerical Register 201-478

4. Instructional Register 479-492

5. Royal Canadian Navy Serials 493-495

6. British Military Serials 497-592

7. United States Army/AirForce Serials 593-597

8. United States Navy Serials 599-603

9. Canadian Civil Registration 605-607

10. Previous and Subsequent Canadian Civil Registrations 609-637

Chapter 6

BRITISH MILITARY SERIALS

John Alexander Griffin - 1922-2008 - Liberator Pilot, Aviation Historian, Author, Former Canadian Aviation History Society President

The RCAF entered the war with a numerical register of serials identifying its total inventory with no irregularities. The early Avro Anson and Fairey Battle aircraft were renumbered in the RCAF series to maintain this continuity. A number of logical developments account for a departure from the original plan and, once the precedent was established, it was a simple matter to extend this practice to include not only British serials but later United States Army Air Force and United States Naval Serials.

The rapidly expanding aircraft inventory which followed the declaration of war naturally presented new problems in the field of maintenance and modification. It will be seen in Chapter 11 that the tremendous increase in type variety during the early 1940's must have imposed a real challenge to those involved with the incorporation of necessary modifications. The complexity of cross-referencing British to Canadian serials was an unnecessary obstacle to prompt follow-up, and the practice of assigning RCAF serials was permitted to lapse in favour of British marks on British aircraft. American aircraft purchased by the British bore British serials and modification information was keyed to those numbers.

When the Lend Lease Act was put into effect it became the practice for the British, Canadians, and Americans to assign overlapping serial blocks so that the eventual user of a contracted block could have their serials applied to the airframes delivered. This practice is evident in the blocks assigned to the Fairchild Cornells for example.

The serials listed in Chapter 6 are those which appeared on the aircraft during service with the RCAF. There were many more British aircraft received in the earlier days of the war and in the post war period but these were assigned RCAF serials and are not listed here.

Only two types of aircraft still serve in the RCAF with their original British serials, the Beechcraft Expeditor and the Douglas Dakota are presumably the last examples of the practice since latter day British types were given RCAF serials as were the de Havilland Vampires. JA Griffin et al 1968