Then. Now. Always. RAAF Centenary

Point Cook became the home of Australia’s first military flying school and is closely associated with the origins of the RAAF. The Central Flying School opened at Point Cook in February 1914 and flying training began that August. Australian military aviators trained there before the Australian Flying Corps served overseas during the First World War.

After the war, Point Cook remained central to the Australian Air Corps and then to the new Australian Air Force formed in 1921. That is why Harrison begins the centenary narrative there.

The Australian Air Force was formed as an independent service on 31 March 1921 and received authority to use the title “Royal” later that year. The new Air Force replaced the temporary Australian Air Corps and became the third arm of Australia’s military forces.

The 31 March date became the basis of the 2021 Centenary. The change was more than a new name: it established a permanent independent air service whose roles and technology would expand dramatically over the next century.

By late 1944 the RAAF had more than 182,000 personnel and around 6,200 aircraft in 61 squadrons. More than 215,000 men and women served in the RAAF during the Second World War, and 9,870 lost their lives.

Australians served across Europe, North Africa, the Mediterranean, Asia and the Pacific. The scale of that wartime expansion explains why so many Second World War aircraft occupy the historical side of Then. Now. Always.

The RAAF remained operational through the Cold War and served in Korea, Malaya, the Indonesian Confrontation, Vietnam and later peacekeeping and Middle East operations. No. 77 Squadron entered the Korean War within days of the conflict beginning, initially flying Mustangs and later Meteors.

Later decades brought Sabres, Canberras, Mirages, Iroquois helicopters, Caribous and F-111s, alongside transport, maritime and support aircraft. Air Force also became increasingly involved in peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance and regional operations.

The phrase connected Air Force heritage, present-day service and the generations still to come. Air Force used the Centenary to honour past and present members, strengthen public understanding of its contribution to Australia and inspire future generations.

The theme was therefore deliberately forward-looking. Harrison adopted the same idea structurally: the artwork starts with the past, moves through the present and continues visually toward future and space-related capability.

Three panels gave Harrison enough visual space to tell a century-long story without turning it into a conventional timeline. Early concepts based on a pilot surrounded by historical scenes or aircraft in formation proved too restrictive.

The triptych allowed Harrison to create three connected chapters and to move the eye continuously from Point Cook in 1921 toward the future.

The pilot is a symbolic figure representing generations of Air Force personnel, not one named individual.

Harrison wanted people to remain at the centre of a story that could easily have become dominated by aircraft. The pilot connects every era: aircraft, uniforms and technology change, but service is ultimately carried by people.

Because the painting is a visual history, not a literal formation. Forty aircraft from across the century are layered through the three panels.

Their placement is designed to create historical progression and visual balance rather than reproduce an event that actually occurred. The approach lets a viewer compare generations of capability within one continuous composition.

Each panel contains 100 squares, reinforcing the Centenary while providing a structure for the layered imagery.

Harrison saw the grid as both technological “building blocks” and a tapestry linking people, ideas and aircraft. It also gives the work a contemporary visual language very different from a traditional aviation painting.

The palette moves from sepia into deep Air Force blues to signal the passage from history toward the present and future. The colour transition is one of the work’s strongest storytelling devices.

The historical side feels archival, while the later panels become increasingly contemporary. The pilot looks toward that blue, future-facing side of the composition.

It was reproduced both as a three-frame treatment and as combined single-canvas editions, with aluminium and other collectables extending the collection further. The three-frame edition preserves the structure of the original triptych.

The 1800 × 600 mm and 1200 × 400 mm versions combine all three panels into one continuous canvas. The aluminium artwork provides a more contemporary display option, while medallions, mugs and other pieces carried the Centenary story into smaller collectable formats.

Both were limited to 250 and carried an engraved Chief of Air Force message, edition number and a heritage-metal inclusion.

Military Shop’s Centenary page records that the 1800 × 600 mm and 1200 × 400 mm canvas editions each incorporated a small disc of metal from a No. 452 Squadron Spitfire Mk VIII, donated by the Darwin Aviation Museum. This physically links the modern Centenary reproduction with an aircraft from the RAAF’s wartime heritage.

They were promoted with a metal disc cut from A21-1, the first F/A-18A built and flown in Australia. That inclusion connected the Centenary artwork with a significant physical piece of Australian aviation heritage.

Where an archive example contains the A21-1 disc, its certificate and message plate should be retained with the artwork as part of its provenance.

An Archive Edition is a retained piece from BrandNet’s original release, preserved with its documented edition number and provenance. For Then. Now. Always. the archive can include early-numbered artwork editions and other retained Centenary pieces.

The significance is not simply age: it is the documented connection between the piece, the original BrandNet release and the Centenary commission.

Collectors often value early numbers because they sit at the beginning of a finite numbered release. The image quality is not inherently different, but a low number can add collecting interest, particularly where the piece remains complete with its original certificate, message plate, heritage-metal inclusion and BrandNet provenance.

Keep the artwork, certificate, numbered message plate and any original heritage-metal inclusion or presentation material together. Those elements help establish exactly what the collector owns.

With special Centenary editions, the metal inclusion and engraved plate are part of the story of the object, not simply packaging.