Aircraft recognition is a visual skill taught to military personal and civilian auxiliaries since the introduction of military aircraft

Military aircraft

A military aircraft is any fixed-wing or rotary-wing aircraft that is operated by a legal or insurrectionary armed service of any type. Military aircraft can be either combat or non-combat:...

 in World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. It is important for air defense and military intelligence

Military intelligence

Military intelligence is a military discipline that exploits a number of information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to commanders in support of their decisions....

 gathering.

Aircraft recognition generally depends on learning the external appearance of the aircraft, both friendly and hostile, most likely to be encountered. A variety of techniques have been used to teach this information including scale model

Scale model

A scale model is a physical model, a representation or copy of an object that is larger or smaller than the actual size of the object, which seeks to maintain the relative proportions of the physical size of the original object. Very often the scale model is used as a guide to making the object in...

s, printed silhouette

Silhouette

A silhouette is the image of a person, an object or scene consisting of the outline and a basically featureless interior, with the silhouetted object usually being black. Although the art form has been popular since the mid-18th century, the term “silhouette” was seldom used until the early decades...

 charts, slide projector

Slide projector

A slide projector is an opto-mechanical device to view photographic slides. Slide projectors were common in the 1950s to the 1970s as a form of entertainment; family members and friends would gather to view slide shows...

s, computer aided instruction and even specially-printed playing card

Playing card

A playing card is a piece of specially prepared heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic, marked with distinguishing motifs and used as one of a set for playing card games...

s.

Early development of skills

In the United Kingdom, The Royal Observer Corps

Royal Observer Corps

The Royal Observer Corps was a civil defence organisation operating in the United Kingdom between 29 October 1925 and 31 December 1995, when the Corps' civilian volunteers were stood down....

 (ROC) was formed as a defence warning organisation with civilians trained in aircraft recognition and operated primarily as such between 1925 and 1957. Aircraft recognition was first developed between the First and Second World wars when aerial warfare was first recognised as a future threat, after 208 Zeppelin and 435 aircraft raids over London during the First World War. In 1917 Germany had started using fixed wing bombers and the number of airship raids diminished rapidly.

To answer this new threat Major General Edward Bailey Ashmore

Edward Ashmore (British Army officer)

Major General Edward Bailey Ashmore CB, CMG, MVO was a British Army officer from the 1890s to the 1920s who served in the Royal Artillery, the Royal Flying Corps and briefly in the Royal Air Force before founding and developing the organisation that would become the Royal Observer Corps.-Early...

 , a First World War pilot who had later been in command of an artillery division in Belgium, was appointed to devise improved systems of detection, communication and control. A system to be called the Metropolitan Observation Service was created, this covered the London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 area, known as the London Air Defence Area, and was soon extended towards the coasts of Kent

Kent

Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

 and Essex

Essex

Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...

. This led to the eventual establishment of the Observer Corps in 1925.

It was the firm opinion and creed of the War Department and the Air Ministry

Air Ministry

The Air Ministry was a department of the British Government with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force, that existed from 1918 to 1964...

, at the start of the war, that accurate recognition of high flying and fast moving aircraft was not possible. The sparetime volunteers of the Observer Corps disagreed and between 1938 and 1939 they started developing the skills and training materials to achieve it, on an unofficial basis.

Local units began to band together and form spotting clubs caller Hearker clubs that eventually combined in April 1941 as The Royal Observer Corps Club and prepared early aircraft type sillouette cards for both allied and German types, mostly made by tracing photographs from The Aeroplane magazine, with some made by enlarging sillouettes from commercially produced 1930s cigarette card sets. Technical editor of The Aeroplane, Peter Masefield himself also a member of the Corps, travelled the length of Britain giving lectures and training sessions.

The club also produced a fortnightly magazine called The Aeroplane Spotter, with the help of The Aeroplane 's printers, that was eventually distributed to every unit in the Corps. Large wall posters were produced that showed every known type of aircraft. The WEFT (Wingshape, Engine configuration, Fuselage shape and Tail type) system of recognition was first developed by Chief Observer C H Gibbs-Smith of Watford Group's Delta 3 post and a member of Hearker Club No. 3.

Recognition competitions were organised locally, regionally and nationally and by the start of World War II the Corps had trained nearly 30,000 volunteers in the skills needed to accurately recognise all types of current aircraft. The unofficial Aeroplane Spotter magazine later renamed as The Journal of the Royal Observer Corps Club before being adopted as an official publication and renamed as The Royal Observer Corps Journal published by HMSO and distributed to every observer at a price of one shilling (5 new pence).

In April 1942 the club initiated recognition proficiency tests, later adopted officially by the ROC, with three levels:

• 3rd Class level (later renamed Basic level) - 50% correct

• 2nd Class level (later renamed Intermediate level) - 70% correct

• 1st Class level (later renamed Master level) - 90% or more correct

In September 1942 the government finally recognised the usefulness and effectiveness of the systems developed by the sparetime observers and first published Aircraft Recognition The Inter-services Recognition Journal

Aircraft Recognition (magazine)

Aircraft Recognition, subtitled The Inter-Services Journal was a British Second World War magazine dedicated to the subject of aircraft recognition...

with early content copied from previous editions of Aeroplane Spotter and The Royal Observer Corps Journal. Featured tests included Airborne Headaches and Amuse and Confuse

With official recognition by HQ Royal Observer Corps and the Air Ministry, that accurate recognition of aircraft was achievable, the systems developed by the volunteers were adopted as official training. The Royal Observer Corps Club disbanded in the Autumn of 1942. In December 1943 the annual Master Test of aircraft recognition was introduced as a compulsory test for all observers and a basic level pass was mantatory for continued membership of the ROC. In the first year those observers who had achieved a club pass at 3rd class level were declared exempt from the basic test requirement.

The Royal Observer Corps established an annual four-man recognition team, with keen competition amongst observers for selection. The team continued to compete annually in the UK's Joint Services Aircraft Recognition Competition and in international competitions with other NATO countries until 1991, despite aircraft recognition being dropped as an operational role for the Corps in 1957. There was also a hard fought annual competition with the Luftmeldekorpsett, the Danish Ground Observer Corps.

Aircraft recognition in the US

In the US during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, civilians were enlisted into a Ground Observer Corps

Ground Observer Corps

The Ground Observer Corps was a series of Civil Defense programs in the United States to protect against air attack. First begun in World War II by the Army Air Forces, the 1.5 million civilian observers at 14,000 coastal observation posts used naked eye and binocular searches to find invading...

to support air defense operations and received aircraft recognition training.

The U.S. military continues to use the initials WEFT as a mnemonic for the major features of an aircraft. All aircraft are built with the same basic elements: Wings or rotors to provide lift, Engines to provide power, a Fuselage to carry the payload and pilot, and a Tail assembly which usually controls the direction of flight. These elements differ in shape, size, number, and position. The differences distinguish one aircraft type from another. The individual components can be taught in as separate recognition and identification features, but it is the composite of these features that must be learned to recognize and identify an aircraft.