Air Ministry The Air Ministry was a department of the British Government with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force , that existed from 1918 to 1964 . It was under the political authority of the Secretary of State for Air . Organisations before the Air Ministry . The Air Committee . On 13 April 1912 , less than two weeks after the creation of the Royal Flying Corps ( which initially consisted of both a naval and a military wing ) , an Air Committee was established to act as an intermediary between the Admiralty and the War Office in matters relating to aviation . The new Air Committee was composed of representatives of the two war ministries and although it could make recommendations , it lacked executive authority . The recommendations of the Air Committee had to be ratified by the Admiralty Board and the Imperial General Staff and , in consequence , the Committee was not particularly effective . The increasing separation of army and naval aviation from 1912 to 1914 only exacerbated the Air Committee ' s ineffectiveness and the Committee did not meet after the outbreak of World War I . The Joint War Air Committee . By 1916 the lack of co - ordination of the Army ' s Royal Flying Corps and the Navy ' s Royal Naval Air Service had led to serious problems , not only in the procurement of aircraft engines , but also in the air defence of Great Britain . It was the supply problems to which an attempt at rectification was first made . The War Committee meeting on 15 February 1916 decided to immediately establish a standing joint naval and military committee to co - ordinate both the design and the supply of materiel for the two air services . This committee was titled the Joint War Air Committee and its chairman was Lord Derby . It was also at the 15 February meeting that Lord Curzon proposed the creation of an Air Ministry . As with the pre - war Air Committee , the Joint War Air Committee lacked any executive powers and therefore was not effective . After only eight sittings , Lord Derby resigned from the Committee stating that " It appears to me quite impossible to bring the two wings closer together . . . unless and until the whole system of the Air Service is changed and they are amalgamated into one service . " Membership . The Joint War Air Committee was composed as follows : Advisory Members were also appointed as required . The Air Board . The first Air Board . The next attempt to establish effective co - ordination between the two air services was the creation of an Air Board . The first Air Board came into being on 15 May 1916 with Lord Curzon as its chairman . The inclusion of Curzon , a Minister , and other political figures was intended to give the Air Board greater status than the Joint War Air Committee . In October 1916 the Air Board published its first report which was highly critical of the arrangements within the British air services . The report noted that although the Army authorities were ready and willing to provide information and take part in meetings , the Navy were often absent from Board meetings and frequently refused to provide information on naval aviation . The second Air Board . In January 1917 the Prime Minister David Lloyd George replaced the chairman Lord Curzon with Lord Cowdray . Godfrey Paine , who served in the newly created post of Fifth Sea Lord and Director of Naval Aviation , sat on the board and this high level representation from the Navy helped to improve matters . Additionally , as responsibility for the design of aircraft had been moved out of single service hands and given to the Ministry of Munitions , some of the problems of inter - service competition were avoided . Establishment of the Air Ministry . Despite attempts at reorganization of the Air Board , the earlier problems failed to be completely resolved . In addition , the growing number of German air raids against Great Britain led to public disquiet and increasing demands for something to be done . As a result Lloyd George , the British Prime Minister , established a committee composed of himself and General Jan Smuts , which was tasked with investigating the problems with the British air defences and organizational difficulties which had beset the Air Board . Towards the end of the First World War , on 17 August 1917 , General Smuts presented a report to the War Council on the future of air power . Because of its potential for the ' devastation of enemy lands and the destruction of industrial and populous centres on a vast scale ' , he recommended a new air service be formed that would be on a level with the Army and Royal Navy . The new air service was to receive direction from a new ministry and on 29 November 1917 the Air Force Bill received Royal Assent and the Air Ministry was formed just over a month later on 2 January 1918 . Lord Rothermere was appointed the first Air Minister . On 3 January , the Air Council was constituted as follows : The Air Ministry initially met in the Hotel Cecil on the Strand . Later , in 1919 , it moved to Adastral House on Kingsway . The creation of the Air Ministry resulted in the disestablishment of the Army Council ' s post of Director - General of Military Aeronautics . Activities . Aircraft production . The Air Ministry issued specifications for aircraft that British aircraft companies would supply prototypes to . These were then assessed , if ordered the Ministry assigned the aircraft name . ( see List Of Air Ministry Specifications ) . The ordering procedure used I . T . P . ( Intention to Proceed ) contract papers ; these specified a maximum fixed price , which could ( after investigation ) be less . But when Lord Nuffield got the I . T . P . contract papers for a Wolseley radial aero engine , which would have required re - orientation of their offices with an army of chartered accountants , he decided to deal only with the War Office and the Admiralty , not the Air Ministry . So the aero engine project was abandoned in 1936 , see Airspeed . Nevil Shute Norway wrote that the loss of such a technically advanced engine was a great loss to Britain as well as Airspeed , and blamed the over - cautious high civil servants of the Air Ministry . When he had asked Lord Nuffield to retain the engine , Nuffield said : " I tell you , Norway . . . I sent that I . T . P . thing back to them , and I told them they could put it where the monkey put the nuts ! " In later years the actual production of aircraft was the responsibility of the Ministry of Aircraft Production ( 1940 – 46 ) , the Ministry of Supply ( 1946 – 59 ) , the Ministry of Aviation ( 1959 – 67 ) and finally the Ministry of Technology ( 1967 – 70 ) . WWII technology . In the 1930s , the Air Ministry commissioned a scientific study of propagating electromagnetic energy which concluded that a death ray was impractical but detection of aircraft appeared feasible . Robert Watson - Watt demonstrated a working prototype and patented the device in 1935 ( British Patent GB593017 ) The device served as the base for the Chain Home network of radars to defend Great Britain . By April 1944 , the ministry ' s air Intelligence branch had succeeded in its intelligence efforts regarding " the beams , the Bruneval Raid , the Gibraltar barrage , radar , Window , heavy water , and the German nightfighters " ( R . V . Jones ) . Other WWII technology & warfare efforts included the branch ' s V - 1 and V - 2 Intelligence activities . Disestablishment . In 1964 the Air Ministry merged with the Admiralty and the War Office to form the Ministry of Defence .