Catalogue description Admiralty: Director of the Department of Aircraft Equipment: Reports

The Directorate of Air Equipment was created in 1917, under the Fifth Sea Lord, to administer aspects of the Royal Naval Air Service, but lapsed the following year with the creation of the Royal Air Force, when the Air Ministry took control of this and all other aspects of administration of naval aviation ashore. But it emerged again in 1939, as the Directorate of Naval Air Equipment (DNAE), when the post of Fifth Sea Lord was re-created to take command of naval aviation matters.

After the Second World War, DNAE was eventually subsumed into the DGA(N) (Director General Aircraft (Navy)) organisation under the Assistant Director (Material). DGA(N) itself was ultimately subsumed into the Ministry of Defence Procurement Executive and the original DNAE role dispersed among numerous aircraft project teams.