Click here to go to the RAF Serials Look Up
We present a Serial Number look up tool that will help you identify a mis-recorded serial number for an aircraft. This searches a database of all RAF aircraft serial numbers. Currently this contains over 250,000+ look ups for Serials of RAF aircraft. This tool only tells you which aircraft would have been assigned a particular number series.. In many logbooks, Pilots would have noted only the number component and left out the alphabet component. This tool helps identify the possible aircraft based on the serial number patterns. The data in this page is based on this forum post made by Ross McNeill.
Please note there is no additional information hosted in this Database regarding aircraft fates or allocations.
This tool is only useful to find out which aircraft shares a common numerical serial with another, or to validate an existing or incorrect serial, and trying to identify the aircraft based on incomplete serials noted in logbooks.
The serials from J1 to Z9999 have been cleaned out of Cancelled Numbers as well as Black Out Blocks. The serials from AA100 onwards still need to be cleaned up. Your search results will vary accordingly.
As of 23 April 2016, the serials from AA to EZ series have been cleaned out. Work remaining for serials FA100 onwards. Watch this space.
As of 22 May 2016, the serials from FA to TZ series have been cleaned out. Comprision tests indicate the serials are now within 90% accuracy.
As of 16 June 2016, A new query form has been designed that allows you to search easily for serials based on alphabet, or number or aircraft name
Here are some comparisons with known Production Runs of aircraft and what is present in the database.
| Aircraft | Production Run | DB Count | Margin of Error |
| Hawker Tempest | 1400 | 1400 | 0 % |
| DH 98 Mosquito | 7781 | 7782 | 0.01 % |
| Avro Lancaster | 7377 | 7564 | 2.5 % |
| Vickers Wellington | 11461 | 12683 | 10.5 % |
| Fairey Fulmar | 600 | 600 | 0 % |
| Spitfire | 20351 | 20905 | 2.72 % |
| Seafire | 2334 | 2575 | 10 % |
| Hawker Hurricane | 14583 | 14768 | 1.26 % |
Not bad. But obviously there are some ‘blackout’ blocks that may have crept in. If you would like to take a shot at validating the data, please do email the webmaster on the corrections (admin AT rafcommands DOT com).