The Hendon Air Pageant, 1920-1937

Omissi, David

Abstract

This chapter analyses the Royal Air Force (RAF) display at Hendon as a manifestation of popular imperialism. The Hendon Air Pageant, which took place every year from 1920 until 1937, was the most celebrated and successful of the new RAF spectacles. The chapter considers how sympathetic spectators and hostile critics responded to the display. It then discusses the way in which the air force modified the spectacle to take account of the fears and prejudices of the audience. Air policing may have given the RAF the independent peacetime role it needed in order to survive, but it did little to build the corporate identity of the new service. The inclusion of the 'Eastern dramas' suggests that the Hendon display was an episode not only of air force but of imperial propaganda. From 1923 each display included a collection of the latest British military aircraft arranged in a special enclosure.

Citation

Omissi, D. (1992). The Hendon Air Pageant, 1920-1937. In J. M. MacKenzie (Ed.), Popular Imperialism and the Military (198-220). Manchester: Manchester University Press. https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526123602

• Online Publication Date: Mar 1, 2017
• Publication Date: Sep 1, 1992
• Deposit Date: Oct 2, 2019
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Pages: 198-220
• Series Title: Studies in Imperialism
• Book Title: Popular Imperialism and the Military
• Chapter Number: 9
• ISBN: 0 7190 3358 6 hardback
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526123602
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/2838978
• Publisher URL: https://www.manchesterhive.com/view/9781526123602/9781526123602.xml