Royal Aero Club

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The Royal Aero Club is the national co-ordinating body for Air Sport in the United Kingdom.

The Royal Aero Club (RAeC) was founded in 1901 by Frank Hedges Butler, his daughter Vera and the Hon Charles Rolls (one of the founders of Rolls-Royce). It was initially concerned with ballooning but, after the invention of heavier than air flight, it embraced the airplane.

In 1909 the Club was granted the Royal prefix. From 1910 the Club issued Aviators Certificates, which were internationally recognised under the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (the FAI) to which the club was the UK representative. The Club is responsible for control in the UK of all private and sporting flying, as well as for records and competitions.

The Club established its first flying ground at Muswell Manor near Leysdown on the Isle of Sheppey in 1909. It was at this ground that John Moore-Brabazon (later Lord Brabazon of Tara) made a flight of 500 yards in his Voisin. This is officially recognised as the first flight by a British pilot in Britain.

Contacts with the Wright brothers led to early members of the Club, the brothers Horace, Eustace and Oswald Short, acquiring for their company Short Brothers a Wright license and laying down the first aircraft production line in the world, at Leysdown. It moved the next year to Eastchurch.

Until 1915 the British Military did not have any pilot training facilities. As a result most early military pilots were trained by members of the club and many became members. By the end of the First World War, more than 6,300 military pilots had taken RAeC Aviator's Certificates.

Today the Royal Aero Club continues to be the national governing and coordinating body of air sport and recreational flying. The governing bodies of the various forms of sporting aviation are all members of the Royal Aero Club, which is the UK governing body for international sporting purposes. The Royal Aero Club also acts to support and protect the rights of recreational pilots in the context of national and international regulation.