On reflection, the development of the Royal Australian Air Force over the past 50 years may be considered to have taken place in three phases—the creation and slow growth of an air force as a distinct entity in the 1920s and 1930s, fostered in part by a series of daring transoceanic flights by both military and civilian aviators; the great expansion of the force during the Second World War which, in half a decade, transformed the RAAF from the biplane era to the jet age; and, finally, the restructuring and development of the force in the so-called post-war era but one, in fact, in which the RAAF has been required to participate in such military operations as confrontation with Indonesia, the anti-terrorist campaign in Malaya, limited war in Korea and the current pacification of South Vietnam.