[1] The rank is used by air forces of many countries that have historical British influence.

In official Canadian French usage, the rank title was colonel d'aviation.

[2] On 1 April 1918, the newly created RAF adopted its officer rank titles from the British Army, with Royal Naval Air Service captains and Royal Flying Corps colonels becoming colonels in the RAF.

This is worn on both the lower sleeves of the tunic or on the shoulders of the flying suit or the casual uniform.

Group captains are the first rank in the RAF hierarchy to wear gold braid on the peak of their cap, informally known as 'scrambled egg'; however, they still wear the standard RAF officer's cap badge.