Brief History
The Central Landing School was established at RAF Ringway airfield near Manchester on 21 June 1940 as a result of Prime Minister Churchill’s direction to create a corps of parachutists.
It was initially commanded by Squadron Leader Louis A. Strange RAF and designed primarily as a parachute training school and experimentation centre and on 1st October 1940 was designated as the Parachute Training Squadron of the Central Landing School.
It was decided on 1 November 1941 that “all future instructors (PJI’s) would be recruited from the Physical Fitness Branch of the RAF”.
It became an independent unit as the Parachute Training School on 15 February 1942.
The title of No 1 Parachute Training School (No1 PTS) was adopted on 27 July 1944.
Royal Air Force PJIs wear a brevet of an open parachute above brown laurel leaves instead of a letter on a half wing.
The new badge was the same as the half-wings awarded to RAF navigators and air gunners but with a parachute replacing the N and AG abbreviations within the laurel wreath.
The PJI half-wing reflected the granting by the RAF conferring honorary aircrew status to PJIs because of their role as dispatchers aboard military transport aircraft in various theatres of the 1939-1945 War.
In 2009 he Parachute Training School was renamed the Airborne Delivery Wing (ADW) and remains based at RAF Brize Norton.
RAF PTI Association 