Victor Goddard

Air Marshal Sir Robert Victor Goddard KCB, CBE (6 February 1897 – 21 January 1987), known as Victor Goddard, was a senior commander in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War.

Goddard is perhaps best known for his interest in paranormal phenomena; he claimed to have witnessed such as a 1946 incident on which the feature film The Night My Number Came Up (1955) was later based.

Early life

Goddard was born at Wembley the son of Dr Charles Goddard. After attending St George's School, Harpenden, he went to the Royal Naval Colleges at Osborne and Dartmouth. He served as a midshipman in the first year of the First World War and in 1915 joined the Royal Naval Air Service. At this time he met his lifelong friend Barnes Wallis. For a period he was patrolling for submarines in dirigibles, but in 1916 commanded reconnaissance flights over the Somme battlefield.

Between the wars

In 1921 Goddard was selected to read engineering at Jesus College, Cambridge and then studied at Imperial College London before returning to Cambridge in 1925 as an instructor to the university's air squadron. After graduating from the Royal Naval Staff College in 1929, he commanded a bomber squadron in Iraq. He returned to England in 1931 as chief instructor of the officers' engineering course. He was then at the Staff College until 1935 when he was appointed deputy director of intelligence at the Air Ministry. He held this post until the outbreak of the Second World War.

Time travel

Time travel is the concept of movement (often by a human) between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space, typically using a hypothetical device known as a time machine. Time travel is a recognized concept in philosophy and fiction, but travel to an arbitrary point in time has a very limited support in theoretical physics, usually only in conjunction with quantum mechanics or Einstein–Rosen bridges. Sometimes the above narrow meaning of time travel is used, sometimes a broader meaning. For example, travel into the future (not the past) via time dilation is a well-proven phenomenon in physics (relativity) and is routinely experienced by astronauts, but only by several milliseconds, as they can verify by checking a precise watch against a clock that remained on Earth. Time dilation by years into the future could be done by taking a round trip during which motion occurs at speeds comparable to the speed of light, but this is not currently technologically feasible for vehicles.

Air force

An air force, also known in some countries as an air army, is in the broadest sense, the national military organization that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an army, navy, or a marine corps. Typically, air forces are responsible for gaining control of the air, carrying out strategic and tactical bombing missions, and providing support to land and naval forces.

The term "air force" may also refer to a tactical air force or numbered air force, which is an operational formation either within a national air force or comprising several air components from allied nations. Air forces typically consist of a combination of fighters, bombers, helicopters, transport planes and other aircraft.

Many air forces are also responsible for operations of the military space, intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), and communications equipment. Some air forces may command and control other air defence assets such as anti-aircraft artillery, surface-to-air missiles, or anti-ballistic missile warning networks and defensive systems. Some nations, principally Russia, the former Soviet Union and countries who modelled their militaries along Soviet lines, have an air defence force which is organizationally separate from their air force.

Goddard

Goddard may refer to:

People

Places

Named for Robert H. Goddard

The following got their names due to Robert H. Goddard's pioneering role in rocketry:

Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's aerial warfare force. Formed toward the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world. Following victory over the Central Powers in 1918 the RAF emerged as, at the time, the largest air force in the world. Since its formation, the RAF has taken a significant role in British military history, in particular, playing a large part in the Second World War where it fought its most famous campaign, the Battle of Britain.

The RAF's mission is to support the objectives of the British Ministry of Defence (MoD), which are to "provide the capabilities needed: to ensure the security and defence of the United Kingdom and overseas territories, including against terrorism; to support the Government’s foreign policy objectives particularly in promoting international peace and security." The RAF describe its mission statement as "... [to provide] An agile, adaptable and capable Air Force that, person for person, is second to none, and that makes a decisive air power contribution in support of the UK Defence Mission." The mission statement is supported by the RAF's definition of air power, which guides its strategy. Air power is defined as: "The ability to project power from the air and space to influence the behaviour of people or the course of events."