I was asked on some input in creating our new logo for our squadron. Our old one was quite outdated and boring. It was put to the cadets to see what they would like but apart from them all drawing their favourite aircraft, it was hard to come up with something meaningful. One of our Sergeants came up with the idea of using a Kestrel to represent the Hawker Siddeley P.1127 Kestrel as 1127 is our squadron number. I sketched my idea up using the red and white stripes in the background. Historically the town of Kendal came under the county of Westmorland. a now defunct county which was broken up between North Yorkshire, Cumberland and made into Cumbria. The original flag had the white and red stripes which was meant to represent Kendal as one half of the county and, the yellow tree which represented Appleby, the county town. A few staff members wanted us to use the blue and green wavy background of the Cumbria flag but we felt we would rather honour our county history as many people don't even know Westmorland existed.

We had to fight for various parts of the design including using an American Kestrel as the colours were just better. The red and white stripes remain and after a bit of tweaking to ensure it would print in an embroidery machine, the finished result is being used today.

The design was printed on both t-shirts and hoodies for our cadets to wear with pride. The latin motto under the crest reads "Brave the storm" which whilst a standard type of phrase for squadron crests is a tongue in cheek reference to the poor weather we experience in this part of the country. Our town had also experienced devastation from Storm Desmond a year previously.

After speaking to staff members and seeing my work, another commander from Whitehaven squadron also enquired about a new logo. Being deep in west Cumbria it made sense for them to use the Cumbrian colours in the background. He also had the great idea of using the Avro Anson. The aircraft took off from RAF Millom on a training exercise in 1943 but crashed 30 miles north, killing the 5 airmen inside. The five stars above the design represent the five lives lost in the crash.   

Whilst these are live projects I haven't asked or received any monetary payment as they are a charitable organisation that I am still a part of. I did receive a softshell jacket with the Whitehaven design on as a thankyou from the Squadron commander commander though.