On the operational level, it was becoming clear that the German system of Air Fleets had grave disadvantages. Even from early July, when the Air Fleets' staff officers submitted separate plans to Göring, it was clearly no way to run an air force. The separate meteorology departments often produced contradictory weather forecasts. The separate channels of manpower, fuel, armament, and spares were wasteful. And many ships going through the Channel (including this day's convoy) had escaped because the ships were shared and scattered across the German Air Fleets' boundaries.

For Dowding the most cheering aspect of these 8 August battles had been the way in which the girls at the cathode-ray tubes had so accurately read off the ranges and direction of the raids. The larger formations proved easier to read off and the operators had proved remarkably good at translating the blurred fidget of light into an assessment of the raid's strength. The height of the attackers had proved more difficult to judge. This was to be expected from the equipment — and so it was to remain throughout the battle — not only for the radar operators but also for the Observer Corps. And yet the height estimation affected the reported position (calculated by simple trigonometry), which is why the tracks zig-zagged across the plotting tables, seldom running in the straight lines that the aircraft actually flew. But it was good enough.

Nationally, the morale of the British public was at an all-time high, and the RAF fighter pilots had created a tradition of engaging the big formations irrespective of odds, and in spite of knowing that there were hundreds of Hurricanes and Spitfires standing idle on British airfields. It was an act of faith in Dowding, although not an unquestioning one. "The utter futility of sending very small sections of fighters to cope with the intense enemy activity in the Portland area is bitterly resented by the pilots," some fighter pilot wrote into 609 Squadron's Operation Record Book, but they continued to attack.

The "Tally-Ho!" tradition was inaugurated by peacetime pilots, leading flights and squadrons. As the Battle continued, and their places were taken by Auxiliaries and Volunteer Reservists, that aggressive spirit was something that no one cared to, or dared to, discontinue. In this respect, it was Fighter Command's career officers who won the Battle.

11 August

'Sailor' Malan, who had damaged Molders's Messerschmitt on 28 July, was this day commanding 74 (Tiger) Squadron for the first time in the air. By the end of July he had won the DFC and bar, and on 11 August he flew three times and claimed two Bf 109s and two Bf 109s severely damaged.

But Malan was 30 years old, officially too old to be a squadron commander. Flying in line-astern formation with Malan that day there was the remarkable Warrant Officer Ernie Mayne. Near the French coast 'Sailor' Malan made a tight turn, and Mayne, at the rear, had to turn tightest of all. He blacked out as the blood rushed out of his brain, and his Spitfire fell through the air from 24,000 feet to about 4,000 feet. Mayne recovered in time to save himself from crashing into the sea. Still dazed, he headed towards a nearby formation in the hope that they would lead him home. "Well of course they were Huns. I think that woke me up a bit. When I saw the crosses I had a shot at one, but then I thought, this is no place for you, you'd better b off. So I did, and got home, but the falling hadn't done my ears any good."

That was an understatement. WO Mayne went into hospital as a result of falling almost four miles through the sky. He was 40 years old, probably the only RFC veteran to fly a Spitfire in the Battle. But this was this NCO's last operational sortie.

Later in the war, with the expansion of Bomber Command, sergeant air crew were recruited directly from civilian life. But in the Battle of Britain period, NCO pilots were either members of the RAF Volunteer Reserve or Regular airmen who had been through the RAF Apprentice School for technical trades. These 'brats' began training when aged between 15, 16, and 17, having committed themselves to remain in the RAF until aged 30.

Sergeant pilot Frank Carey was an ex-brat. Born in Brixton, London, in 1912, he had joined the RAF only a few days after his fifteenth birthday. After three years as an apprentice, he went to 43 Squadron as a mechanic, and then spent a year on an engineering course. Selected for pilot training, Carey arrived back at 43 Squadron as a Sergeant pilot in September 1935. In January 1940, Carey damaged a Heinkel 111. It was the Squadron's first success He got the DFM (the other-ranks' equivalent of the DFC that was awarded to officers), and then was made an officer. He went to 3 Squadron in France and within hours of arriving was credited with his new Squadron's first success too. By the summer of 1940 Frank Carey was back in his old 43 Squadron but now he was a flight commander and their top ace. By the time he was wounded in August he was credited with eighteen victories. By the end of the war he was a Group Captain.

Sammy Allard was another outstanding Sergeant pilot. With characteristic generosity and modesty, Peter Townsend, commanding 85 Squadron (once the home of First World War aces Mick Mannock and Billy Bishop) acknowledged Allard as the best pilot in the Squadron. Allard won the DFM and bar, getting a commission in time to win the DFC too. By October he had destroyed nine enemy aircraft and was a Flight Lieutenant.

But not all the Sergeant pilots got promoted to officer rank. Sergeant Alan Feary was the only NCO pilot with 609 Squadron all through the summer months. "He must at times have felt dreadfully lonely…," said the Squadron history. Excluded from the social life of their fellow pilots, these NCOs were often treated with reserve by the old-timers who controlled the Sergeants' Mess, some of whom regarded flying as a quick and easy way to get three stripes.

In other squadrons NCO pilots sometimes outnumbered the officers. For instance at 501 Squadron in September, with three officer pilots in hospital, there were twelve pilots in the Sergeants' Mess, with only the Commanding Officer, two flight commanders, and four pilots in the Officers' Mess.

These ex-tradesmen, who had spent so many years working on the airframes and engines, had a close affinity with the machines they flew. Some of them found it difficult to subject their carefully tuned fighters to the sort of rough abuse that was a necessary part of normal combat (for similar reasons top racing and rally drivers are seldom recruited from the men who tune the cars). When Sergeant Feary of 609 (West Riding) Squadron was shot up in a dog-fight with some Bf 109s and Bf 110s, he tried to nurse his Spitfire home. The 609 Squadron diary recorded, "He seemed to regard his Spitfire with the kind of jealous care and affection that some others bestow upon animals, and the notion has been advanced by those who knew him well that this trait in his character may have contributed to the loss of his life, causing reluctance to bail out from a spin which he was unable to control."

Sergeant 'Ginger' Lacey, with 501 (County of Gloucester) Squadron, an Auxiliary Air Force unit, had never been a brat. Lacey had learned to fly as a member of the RAFVR on weekends and at summer camps. He had only become a full-time fighter pilot at the outbreak of war. Of all the men flying Spitfires and Hurricanes in the Battle of Britain, about a quarter were non-commissioned ranks (nearly all of them Sergeants). Of these NCO pilots, about two-fifths were VR men.

But there was another type of NCO pilot; these were experienced flyers from foreign air forces, mostly Poles and Czechs. Such men were usually given ranks below those they had held abroad.