SIR - It's extraordinary that the Chief of the Air Staff has ordered that the term ‘aviator’ is now to be used for all RAF people.
The vast majority of the Royal Air Force’s 30,000 personnel have no flying role in any of the RAF’s 586 aircraft - they are ground crew and support staff, aircrew being very much ‘The Few’. Indeed, it is probably more accurate to call one of Santa’s reindeer an ‘aviator’ than most of those in light blue.
For those of us who were, or are, sailors, marines and soldiers, it’s straightforward - RAF personnel are certainly not all aviators but they are all known to the other services as ‘the Crabs’!
Lester May (Lieutenant Commander, Royal Navy - retired), Camden Town, London
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