As the sponsor of flying badges in the RAF then I can clear this one up. There was an administrative error and misunderstanding committed with the ‘FC’, ‘AT’, ‘IA’, ‘RAF’ (ie. WSO/WSOp), ‘VR’ Pilot and RPAS Pilot flying badges. Jeff Jefford was quite correct with his analysis in his excellent book “Observers and Navigators’.
Action was taken with the Palace to rectify this and on 13 Sep 2019 Her Majesty most graciously signed off the memorandum to authorise the legacy badges and then agreed that only the following flying badges would be issued from the 1 Apr 20 point onwards (unless awarded previously, when they could remain being worn):
Pilot
WSO/WSOp
Airborne Specialist (a completely new badge)
Parachute Jump Instructor
Reserve Pilot (Glider) (a completely new badge)
Reserve Pilot (Air Experience)
MRAF listed many of the legacy badges previously at #30 -
https://www.britishbadgeforum.com/fo...0&postcount=30