A taste of operations was to come the way of the Squadron in September 1929 when, as a result of the serious fighting over Palestine between the Jews and Arabs at the end of August, a composite flight of the Squadron was despatched to Ramleh as reinforcements. The flight of four aircraft commanded by Flight Lieutenant J J Lloyd-Williams MC, took off from Heliopolis on 17th September for Ramleh while the ground party, consisting of 18 airmen two Morris six-wheelers and one months stores followed up by train. At Ramleh the flight carried out daily reconnaissance flights over the disturbed areas taking air action against those seen burning or plundering villages. By the time they were relieved on 11th October they had carried out 162 flights involving 208 hours 25 minutes flying time.
The winter tests for the Lord Lloyd Reliability Competition came round in November and all of the twelve Squadron aircraft which took part (twelve being the maximum entry) completed the course successfully. The total
mileage flown was 18,696 in the four days. The competition this year was assessed on the combined efforts during both summer and winter trials. In the summer trials earlier in the year the Squadron was unfortunate to lose an aircraft which was burned out refuelling at Helwan. The mileage flown by the seven aircraft, then was 8,843. This placed the Squadron second overall with 200 marks, 216 Squadron winning with 209 marks and 45 Squadron coming third with 198 marks.
The amount of time the Squadron spent on Army Co-operation had progressed very noticeably in the late nineteen twenties. This was demonstrated by the fact that during the training year 1926-7 the number of hours flown on Unit Training, Artillery Co-operation, Collective and Brigade Training and Command Manoeuvres totalled 155; during the training year 1929-30 the number of hours flown on similar sorties was 856. This last figure represented slightly over a fifth of the total hours flown by the Squadron during the year. The Army were very appreciative of this co-operation and a strong
liaison existed between the two services.
A change in command placed Squadron Leader Maurice Moore OBE at the helm in April 1930 and to complete the change, the following month the Squadron was re-equipped with Armstrong Whitworth Atlas aircraft.
