I wonder when it got reduced from 3* to 1*. Meanwhile, the RAF has shrunk significantly but still has a 4* CAS.
On the CAS front I don’t see that ever changing, if only for the prestige element of being equal with other 4* led militaries. If it really came to it we could make like the AUS/CAN militaries and have CDS as 4*, with VCDS, service chiefs and Commander UKSTRATCOM as 3* posts. But that would be a very sorry sign of the state of things…
And yeah I think it would be somewhat laughable to even contemplate promoting TK to 2*… That way ACAS wouldn’t be able to overrule him quite so easily, and we’d be doing even less activities!
Also 4* reflects the responsibilities carried not just number of personnel under command.
I’m sure I read somewhere that Typhoon or Tornado delivers more ‘effect’ on target than a Lancaster but with a crew of 1 or 2 rather than 7.
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…but after 3 trips becomes a hangar queen for 3 months 
(TK or Typhoon?.. take your pick )
I’ve just been reminded of the wejohns.com site that shows the cover of so many Gazette issues
Air Defence Cadet Corps Gazette and Air Training Corps Gazette featuring the work of Captain W E Johns
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Think I can see Teflon on the Jan 42 cover 
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Picking up the second bar to his CFM
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Although it’s true that modern capabilities deliver much more effect with fewer platforms and personnel, the size of the force does come into play. Some of the international chiefs we host at RIAT are ‘only’ colonels but still have all the responsibilities associated with commanding their nation’s air force.
Whilst it isn’t necessary for CDS to outrank the sS chiefs, as that isn’t how the CoC works, it would make sense for a sS chief becoming CDS to actually get a promotion out of it. Then again, by the same logic there should be at least four classes of warrant officer.
At least they’ve given the top warrant officer a laurel wreath now, if not a pay rise haha.
Taking a leaf out of the RAFAC play book. “Your reward is a new rank slide”
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This is more like what we should be reading these days: ‘The surest way of preventing war is to show the world that we are ready for it should any Power dare to challenge us in the future.’ I wonder whom he meant by that?
Or the purpose of having an Air Training Corps: ‘…the first link in the chain of the production of recruits [for] both air crews and ground services in the regular and non-regular forces.’
No whiny-sounding ‘We’re not a recruitment service for the Royal Air Force’ in those days!
Not that we’ve got much of an air force anymore: it’s so small everyone probably knows each other on first name terms. That’s why it’s so hard to join the Armed Forces these days. It must be like being chosen to be on a playground football team. If the clique of cool and sporty kids don’t want you on their side, forget it! 
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A hell of a butterfly effect when you think about it. We have TK and organisational decline today because some archduke permanently clocked out in Sarajevo 110 years ago.
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I thought it was some bloke called Archie Duke shooting an ostrich because he was hungry?
(Apologies to @Baldrick for stealing your line)
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There is a link between the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and today’s RAFAC: the two World Wars are really one Thirty Years War, in which the RAF was formed, rapidly expanded and reduced between 1918-20, then rapidly expanded and gradually reduced again between 1938 and the present day. The Corps of Air Cadets were part of that second expansion and are, along with our parent service, suffering the effects of the decades-long second reduction.
Had a large-scale war not been fought throughout the world between 1914-45, military aviation might well have remained in the hands of the army and navy. The RAF had to be created in 1918 in order to expand and form an independent strategic bomber force. If the Armistice had not been brought about in November 1918, RAF heavy bombers would have carried out long range missions against targets in Germany. Prior to the formation of the RAF, all sorties were in direct support of ground and naval forces.
The RAF narrowly avoided being disbanded in 1919, and suffered an enormous reduction in its numbers in the 1920s. That’s when the RAF really were ‘The Few,’ as they are today. 
Which is what the German Luftwaffe suffered from between 1933 to 1945, they were seen as a longer range artillery rather than an air force in its own right. The RAF embraced the Douhet theory of the bomber will always get through.
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The Soviet air force also had no strategic bombers in WWII: the RAF and USAAF did it all, being nearer to the Reich.
Soviet air force didn’t need strategic bombers, initially they traded land for time at the start of Barbarossa and had an unlimited supply of men and raw materials. What they lacked initially was equipment, so the Arctic convoys were started.
The first strategic bombing raid on Germany was on the 3rd of September 1939 on Schilling Roads on the Baltic by Wellingtons.
First strategic bombing raid was German Zeppelins attacking East Anglia in 1915
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My reply was in the context of WW2.
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I’ve just attended a fascinating talk organised by the RAF Museum about the bomber campaign and some of the technology behind it.
It will be on their website for replay if anyone wants to have a listen:
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Unalived by another dude