RAF West Malling over the Channel. The three surviving aircraft were rescued only when the fight was joined by Hurricanes from No. 111 Squadron. The remainder of the unit returned north to RAF Prestwick on 25 July due to the ineffectiveness of the Defiant against single-seat fighters. No. 29 Squadron flying Bristol Beaufighters arrived for its first tour of duty on 27 April 1941. One of the Squadron's pilots, Guy Gibson VC, later officer commanding 617 Squadron on the Dambusters Raid, said of the station "Of all the airfields in Great Britain ... we have the most pleasant". A regular and long-standing inhabitant,
RAF-977 assembly capacity (only 3000 units a year) at the RAF plant (which still used trolleys, rather than a modern assembly line), its production started at the ErAZ factory in Yerevan, Armenia, 1 May 1966 as ErAZ-762. This was nicknamed "Yeraz" (Armenian for "dream"). By 1973, ErAZ's production reached 6,500 per year; with the innovation of overhead carriage, capacity almost doubled, to 12,000 a year. The 977 was also produced under licence by "Lugansk Avto Remontnyi Zavod" (LARZ). In 1969, an improved ErAZ-762A also appeared. Production of the RAF-977 ceased in 1975, when it was replaced by RAF-2203 Latvia. The 977