No. 83 Expeditionary Air Group (United Kingdom)

No. 83 Expeditionary Air Group is a group within the Royal Air Force currently based out of RAF Al Udeid in Qatar.

It used to be No. 83 Group which was controlled by the 2nd Tactical Air Force (2TAF) during the Second World War and the post-war era.

No. 83 (Composite) Group
No. 83 (Composite) Group was formed on 1 April 1943 within the Second Tactical Air Force. By the eve of the D-Day landings, 83 Group had grown to a strength of 29 fighter, ground-attack and reconnaissance squadrons and four artillery observation squadrons, grouped into ten wings.

At the time of Operation Market Garden it consisted of the RCAF's 39 Reconnaissance Wing, 121, 122, 123 and 143 Wings flying Hawker Typhoon fighter-bombers, 125 Wing with Supermarine Spitfire fighters, and the RCAF 126 and 127 Wings also flying Spitfires. No 401 (Ram) Squadron with Spitfires was one of its squadrons from 1943. The Group HQ was at RAF Eindhoven from 1 October 1944 to 10 April 1945. It was absorbed into No. 84 Group RAF on 21 April 1946.

No. 83 Group
No 83 Group was re-formed on 9 July 1952 within the Second Tactical Air Force in Germany to control its southern area. By 1956, the group controlled five wings with a total of fourteen squadrons equipped Hawker Hunter day fighters, de Havilland Venom fighter-bombers, Supermarine Swift fighter-reconnaissance aircraft, Gloster Meteor night-fighters and English Electric Canberra interdiction and reconnaissance aircraft. It was disbanded again on 16 June 1958.

Current operations
No. 83 Group was re-formed on 1 April 2006 from the UK Air Component Headquarters at RAF Al Udeid, Qatar. It comprised No. 901 Expeditionary Air Wing at Al Udeid and Bahrain and No.902 Expeditionary Air Wing at Seeb. Since that time it has controlled a varying number of Expeditionary Air Wings.

The Air Officer Commanding No. 83 Group is the Air Component Commander in the Middle East. He is responsible to the Permanent Joint Headquarters for the command and control of all RAF units engaged in Operations Telic, Herrick and Shader. The group has a small number of headquarters staff.

It is currently in charge of:

901 Expeditionary Air Wing 902 Expeditionary Air Wing 903 Expeditionary Air Wing 904 Expeditionary Air Wing 906 Expeditionary Air Wing
 * A Flight: Unknown location - Unknown aircraft
 * C Flight: Bahrain International Airport - BAe 125 and BAe 146
 * Unknown location - Raytheon Sentinel R1
 * De-activated during November 2014.
 * Kandahar Airfield - offensive and transport aircraft
 * Al Minhad Air Base - Unknown aircraft

1943 to 1946

 * Air Vice Marshal W F Dickson, from 21 March 1943
 * AVM H Broadhurst, from 25 March 1944
 * AVM T C Traill, from September 1945

1952 to 1958

 * Air Commodore, later acting Air Vice-Marshal R B Lees, 1952 to 1955.


 * AVM H A V Hogan, 1955 to 1958.

2006 to present

 * Air Commodore B M North, 2006
 * Air Commodore C A Bairsto, mid-2006 – Jan 2007
 * Air Commodore P Oborn
 * Air Commodore M J Harwood, – 22 Aug 08
 * Air Commodore A S Barmby, 22 Aug 08 – 22 May 2009
 * Air Commodore S D Atha, 22 May 2009 – date unknown
 * Air Commodore K B McCann
 * Air Commodore A D Stevenson
 * Air Commodore S D Forward
 * Air Commodore P J Beach
 * Air Commodore A Gillespie