Royal Air Force Over Oshkosh and the Transatlantic Bond Written in Roundels and Rivets

On September 30, AVweb’s picture of the day showed something that stopped pilots mid-scroll: Royal Air Force roundels over Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. That image carries more than a century of shared history - from American volunteers who flew in RAF colors before Pearl Harbor to Rolls-Royce engines lifting both British and American aircraft today.

Why RAF Aircraft Over Oshkosh Means More Than It Looks

EAA AirVenture Oshkosh draws aircraft from around the world, but seeing the concentric red, white, and blue circles of the Royal Air Force over that Wisconsin landscape is different. The roundel is not just a national marking. American pilots have fought under it.

The RAF was founded in 1918 - the world’s first independent air force, formed by combining the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service in the final year of World War I. By the time World War II began, it was the institution standing between Britain and German air superiority over Europe.

The Battle of Britain: What the RAF Held Against

Between July and October 1940, the RAF fought the Luftwaffe over southern England in what became the Battle of Britain. RAF Fighter Command was outnumbered in both aircraft and pilots. Spitfires and Hurricanes flew out of grass airfields in Kent and Sussex, sometimes flying three or four sorties per day. Pilot losses outpaced training. At one point, the average life expectancy for a new RAF fighter pilot entering combat was four weeks.

They held.

The American Pilots Who Flew RAF Blue Before Pearl Harbor

Before the United States entered the war, American pilots were already flying for the RAF. They formed the Eagle Squadrons - three units: No. 71 Squadron, No. 121 Squadron, and No. 133 Squadron.

They came from Texas, California, Oklahoma, Montana. Some came through Canada. Some fabricated qualifications to get through RAF screening. All of them put on RAF blue. Approximately 244 American pilots served in the Eagle Squadrons before those pilots were transferred to the United States Army Air Forces in September 1942. 73 of them were killed.

They flew Hurricanes, and later Spitfires, under RAF command, before their own country was officially at war. That is the foundation of the Anglo-American aviation relationship - not a diplomatic agreement, but pilots sharing cockpits and combat losses.

The RAF in 2026: Smaller, More Capable

The Royal Air Force today looks different from the service that flew Spitfires over the Channel, but the institution is recognizable.

The RAF currently operates the Eurofighter Typhoon, the F-35B Lightning II (the short takeoff and vertical landing variant operating off Royal Navy Queen Elizabeth-class carriers), the Boeing P-8 Poseidon for maritime patrol, the Atlas for transport, and the Chinook for heavy lift. Approximately 30,000 active personnel - smaller than the Cold War-era RAF, but arguably more capable per airframe than at any point in the service’s history.

The Red Arrows: What American Pilots Most Want to See

When American pilots hear “Royal Air Force airshow,” most think of one thing: the Red Arrows.

The Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team has been flying since 1965. They have performed over 5,000 displays in more than 50 countries. They fly the BAe Hawk, a two-seat jet trainer, in a nine-aircraft formation - red smoke on the climbs, white on the breaks, blue on the crossovers.

Getting the Red Arrows to the United States is a significant undertaking. The Hawk’s limited range means crossing the Atlantic requires staging through Iceland and Greenland or through the Azores, plus diplomatic coordination, airspace agreements, and months of planning. When they come, both governments have committed real resources to make it happen.

The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight and the Sound of Merlin Engines

The RAF’s connection to AirVenture extends beyond modern jets. British aviation organizations and the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight have brought historic warbirds across the Atlantic - Spitfires, Hurricanes, Lancasters - aircraft that defined the air war over Europe.

The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight is based at RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire. Its fleet has included multiple Spitfires, a Hurricane, a Lancaster, a Dakota, and several Chipmunks and Harvards. Every year they display across the United Kingdom. Occasionally, they cross the Atlantic.

When a Lancaster appears over Oshkosh, the crowd goes quiet before it arrives. Four Rolls-Royce Merlin engines - the same powerplant that drove the Spitfire, Hurricane, and Mosquito. Rolls-Royce designed the Merlin in the 1930s and produced it in the hundreds of thousands. Packard Motor Car Company manufactured it under license on assembly lines in Detroit. The engine that helped hold the line during the Battle of Britain was eventually an American product. That crossed lineage is characteristic of everything that came after.

British Engineering Inside American Aircraft

The Hawker Siddeley Harrier - the world’s first operational vertical and short takeoff and landing jet combat aircraft - entered RAF service in 1969. Its Pegasus engine used vectored thrust: four swiveling nozzles directing exhaust for either conventional forward flight or vertical lift. The U.S. Marine Corps bought it, designating the evolved version the AV-8B Harrier II, developed in partnership with McDonnell Douglas.

The F-35B, the vertical lift variant now flying off Royal Navy carriers, traces a direct line to a drawing board in Kingston upon Thames in the 1950s. Rolls-Royce manufactures the lift fan for the F-35B - the component that enables vertical landing. British engineering inside an American airframe, deployed by both air forces simultaneously.

At the commercial level, the same thread continues. Rolls-Royce is one of only three manufacturers in the world producing engines for wide-body commercial aircraft. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner can fly on Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines. The Airbus A350 flies exclusively on the Rolls-Royce Trent XWB. When you board a wide-body aircraft anywhere in the world, there is a real probability you are moving through the air on British engineering - without a roundel in sight.

Wittman Regional: The Airport Behind the Name

Most people forget that Oshkosh’s airport has a name: Wittman Regional Airport, named for Steve Wittman - an air racer and aircraft designer who competed in the National Air Races starting in the 1930s, built his own aircraft, and kept flying into his eighties.

The airport sits in east-central Wisconsin at 808 feet MSL. Two runways, the longer running 8,000 feet. During AirVenture, by operations count, it briefly becomes one of the busiest airports in the world. The system works because the NOTAM procedures are thorough, the pilot briefings are detailed, and pilots follow them. The Fisk arrival, the rock-wagging acknowledgment from the controller below, the left-right turn direction to the pattern - it functions because pilots do their part.

On certain days, in certain years, the aircraft arriving into that pattern are wearing roundels.

Why This Image Matters for Pilots

Aviation is one of the few disciplines where the international community is operationally real, not just diplomatic. The language in the pattern is English regardless of what country you’re flying from - ICAO made that standard, and every pilot in the world operates within it. But the bond between British and American aviation predates ICAO entirely.

It runs back through the Eagle Squadrons, Lend-Lease, the Eighth Air Force flying out of East Anglia, and more than one American pilot who learned what Merlin engines sounded like because a British airman showed him what that sound meant. The photograph AVweb posted on September 30 captures all of that without a caption. RAF roundels over Wisconsin carry a story that runs in both directions across the Atlantic, and it has been running for over a hundred years.

Key Takeaways

• The Royal Air Force, founded in 1918, is the world’s oldest independent air force, and its direct relationship with American aviation predates U.S. involvement in World War II
• Approximately 244 American pilots flew in the Eagle Squadrons under RAF command before Pearl Harbor; 73 were killed before their country was officially at war
• The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight at RAF Coningsby maintains historic Spitfires, Hurricanes, and a Lancaster in airworthy condition and has brought these aircraft to EAA AirVenture
• The F-35B’s Rolls-Royce lift fan is the direct engineering descendant of the Harrier’s Pegasus engine - British technology inside a joint Anglo-American fifth-generation fighter, deployed by both nations simultaneously
• Rolls-Royce engines power the Boeing 787 Dreamliner (Trent 1000) and exclusively power the Airbus A350 (Trent XWB), meaning British engineering moves a significant share of global commercial air traffic