Eleven months after the Rheims meeting came what may be reckoned the

only really notable aviation meeting on English soil, in the form of

the Bournemouth week, July 10th to 16th, 1910. This gathering is

noteworthy mainly in view of the amazing advance which it registered

on the Rheims performances. Thus, in the matter of altitude, Morane

reached 4,107 feet and Drexel came second with 2,490 feet. Audemars

on a Demoiselle monoplane made a flight of 17 miles 1,480 yards in 27

minutes 17.2 seconds, a great flight for the little Demoiselle. Morane

achieved a speed of 56.64 miles per hour, and Grahame White climbed

to 1,000 feet altitude in 6 minutes 36.8 seconds. Machines carrying

the Gnome engine as power unit took the great bulk of the prizes, and

British-built engines were far behind.

[Illustration: Rolls executing a turn (note tilt).]

[Illustration: Fatal accident to Rolls. Bournemouth Aviation Week.]

The Bournemouth Meeting will always be remembered with regret for the

tragedy of C. S. Rolls’s death, which took place on the Tuesday, the

second day of the meeting. The first competition of the day was that

for the landing prize; Grahame White, Audemars, and Captain Dickson

had landed with varying luck, and Rolls, following on a Wright machine

with a tail-plane which ought never to have been fitted and was not

part of the Wright design, came down wind after a left-hand turn and

turned left again over the top of the stands in order to land up wind.

He began to dive when just clear of the stands, and had dropped to a

height of 40 feet when he came over the heads of the people against the

barriers. Finding his descent too steep, he pulled back his elevator

lever to bring the nose of the machine up, tipping down the front end

of the tail to present an almost flat surface to the wind. Had all

gone well, the nose of the machine would have been forced up, but the

strain on the tail and its four light supports was too great; the tail

collapsed, the wind pressed down the biplane elevator, and the

machine dived vertically for the remaining 20 feet of the descent,

hitting the ground vertically and crumpling up. Major Kennedy, first

to reach the debris, found Rolls lying with his head doubled under him

on the overturned upper main plane; the lower plane had been flung

some few feet away with the engine and tanks under it. Rolls was

instantaneously killed by concussion of the brain.

Antithesis to the tragedy was Audemars on his Demoiselle, which was

named ‘The Infuriated Grasshopper.’ Concerning this, it was recorded

at the time that ‘Nothing so excruciatingly funny as the action of

this machine has ever been seen at any aviation ground. The little

two-cylinder engine pops away with a sound like the frantic drawing of

ginger beer corks; the machine scutters along the ground with its tail

well up; then down comes the tail suddenly and seems to slap the ground

while the front jumps up, and all the spectators rock with laughter.

The whole attitude and the jerky action of the machine suggest a

grasshopper in a furious rage, and the impression is intensified when

it comes down, as it did twice on Wednesday, in long grass, burying its

head in the ground in its temper.’--(_The Aero_, July, 1910.)

The Lanark Meeting followed in August of the same year, and with the

bare mention of this, the subject of flying meetings may be left alone,

since they became mere matters of show until there came military

competitions such as the Berlin Meeting at the end of August, 1910,

and the British War Office Trials on Salisbury Plain, when Cody won

his greatest triumphs. The Berlin meeting proved that, from the time

of the construction of the first successful German machine mentioned

above, to the date of the meeting, a good number of German aviators

had qualified for flight, but principally on Wright and Antoinette

machines, though by that time the Aviatik and Dorner German makes had

taken the air. The British War Office Trials deserve separate and

longer mention.

In 1910 in spite of official discouragement, Captain Dickson proved the

value of the aeroplane for scouting purposes by observing movements

of troops during the Military Manœuvres on Salisbury Plain. Lieut.

Lancelot Gibbs and Robert Loraine, the actor-aviator, also made flights

over the manœuvre area, locating troops and in a way anticipating the

formation and work of the Royal Flying Corps by a usefulness which

could not be officially recognised.

[Illustration: Audemars on ‘The Infuriated Grasshopper,’ Bournemouth.

July, 1910.]

XV

THE CHANNEL CROSSING

It may be said that Louis Bleriot was responsible for the second great

landmark in the history of successful flight. The day when the brothers

Wright succeeded in accomplishing power-driven flight ranks as the

first of these landmarks. Ader may or may not have left the ground,

but the wreckage of his ‘Avion’ at the end of his experiment places

his doubtful success in a different category from that of the brothers

Wright and leaves them the first definite conquerors, just as Bleriot

ranks as first definite conqueror of the English Channel by air.

In a way, Louis Bleriot ranks before Farman in point of time; his

first flapping-wing model was built as early as 1900, and Voisin flew

a biplane glider of his on the Seine in the very early experimental

days. Bleriot’s first four machines were biplanes, and his fifth, a

monoplane, was wrecked almost immediately after its construction.

Bleriot had studied Langley’s work to a certain extent, and his sixth

construction was a double monoplane based on the Langley principle. A

month after he had wrecked this without damaging himself--for Bleriot

had as many miraculous escapes as any of the other fliers--he brought

out number seven, a fairly average monoplane. It was in December

of 1907 after a series of flights that he wrecked this machine,

and on its successor, in July of 1908, he made a flight of over 8

minutes. Sundry flights, more or less successful, including the first

cross-country flight from Toury to Artenay, kept him busy up to the

beginning of November, 1908, when the wreckage in a fog of the machine

he was flying sent him to the building of ‘number eleven,’ the famous

cross-channel aeroplane.

Number eleven was shown at the French Aero Show in the Grand Palais

and was given its first trials on the 18th January, 1909. It was first

fitted with a R.E.P. motor and had a lifting area of 120 square feet,

which was later increased to 150 square feet. The framework was of oak

and poplar spliced and reinforced with piano wire; the weight of the

machine was 47 lbs. and the undercarriage weight a further 60 lbs.,

this consisting of rubber cord shock absorbers mounted on two wheels.

The R.E.P. motor was found unsatisfactory, and a three-cylinder Anzani

of 105 mm. bore and 120 mm. stroke replaced it. An accident seriously

damaged the machine on June 2nd, but Bleriot repaired it and tested it

at Issy, where between June 19th and June 23rd he accomplished flights

of 8, 12, 15, 16, and 36 minutes. On July 4th he made a 50-minute

flight and on the 13th flew from Etampes to Chevilly.

[Illustration: Blériot crossing the Channel.]

A few further details of construction may be given: the wings

themselves and an elevator at the tail controlled the rate of ascent

and descent, while a rudder was also fitted at the tail. The steering

lever, working on a universally jointed shaft--forerunner of the modern

joy-stick--controlled both the rudder and the wings, while a pedal

actuated the elevator. The engine drove a two-bladed tractor screw of

6 feet 7 inches diameter, and the angle of incidence of the wings was

20 degrees. Timed at Issy, the speed of the machine was given as 36

miles an hour, and as Bleriot accomplished the Channel flight of 20

miles in 37 minutes, he probably had a slight following wind.

The _Daily Mail_ had offered a prize of £1,000 for the first

Cross-Channel flight, and Hubert Latham set his mind on winning it.

He put up a shelter on the French coast at Sangatte, half-way between

Calais and Cape Blanc Nez. From here he made his first attempt to fly

to England on Monday the 19th of July. He soared to a fair height,

circling, and reached an estimated height of about 900 feet as he came

over the water with every appearance of capturing the Cross-Channel

prize. The luck which dogged his career throughout was against him,

for, after he had covered some 8 miles, his engine stopped and he

came down to the water in a series of long glides. It was discovered

afterward that a small piece of wire had worked its way into a vital

part of the engine to rob Latham of the honour he coveted. The tug that

came to his rescue found him seated on the fuselage of his Antoinette,

smoking a cigarette and waiting for a boat to take him to the tug. It

may be remarked that Latham merely assumed his Antoinette would float

in case he failed to make the English coast; he had no actual proof.

Bleriot immediately entered his machine for the prize and took up his

quarters at Barraques. On Sunday, July 25th, 1909, shortly after 4

a.m., Bleriot had his machine taken out from its shelter and prepared

for flight. He had been recently injured in a petrol explosion and

hobbled out on crutches to make his cross-Channel attempt; he made two

great circles in the air to try the machine, and then alighted. ‘In

ten minutes I start for England,’ he declared, and at 4.35 the motor

was started up. After a run of 100 yards, the machine rose in the air

and got a height of about 100 feet over the land, then wheeling sharply

seaward and heading for Dover.

Bleriot had no means of telling direction, and any change of wind might

have driven him out over the North Sea, to be lost, as were Cecil Grace

and Hamel later on. Luck was with him, however, and at 5.12 a.m. of

that July Sunday, he made his landing in the North Fall meadow, just

behind Dover Castle. Twenty minutes out from the French coast, he lost

sight of the destroyer which was patrolling the Channel, and at the

same time he was out of sight of land without compass or any other

means of ascertaining his direction. Sighting the English coast, he

found that he had gone too far to the east, for the wind increased in

strength throughout the flight, this to such an extent as almost to

turn the machine round when he came over English soil. Profiting by

Latham’s experience, Bleriot had fitted an inflated rubber cylinder a

foot in diameter by 5 feet in length along the middle of his fuselage,

to render floating a certainty in case he had to alight on the water.

[Illustration: Latham starts from Sangatte.]

Latham in his camp at Sangatte had been allowed to sleep through the

calm of the early morning through a mistake on the part of a friend,

and when his machine was turned out in order that he might emulate

Bleriot, although he no longer hoped to make the first flight, it took

so long to get the machine ready and dragged up to its starting-point

that there was a 25 mile an hour wind by the time everything was in

readiness. Latham was anxious to make the start in spite of the wind,

but the Directors of the Antoinette Company refused permission. It

was not until two days later that the weather again became favourable,

and then with a fresh machine, since the one on which he made his first

attempt had been very badly damaged in being towed ashore, he made a

circular trial flight of about 5 miles. In landing from this, a side

gust of wind drove the nose of the machine against a small hillock,

damaging both propeller blades and chassis, and it was not until

evening that the damage was repaired.

French torpedo boats were set to mark the route, and Latham set out on

his second attempt at six o’clock. Flying at a height of 200 feet, he

headed over the torpedo boats for Dover and seemed certain of making

the English coast, but a mile and a half out from Dover his engine

failed him again, and he dropped to the water to be picked up by the

steam pinnace of an English warship and put aboard the French destroyer

_Escopette_.

There is little to choose between the two aviators for courage in

attempting what would have, been considered a foolhardy feat a year or

two before. Bleriot’s state, with an abscess in the burnt foot which

had to control the elevator of his machine, renders his success all the

more remarkable. His machine was exhibited in London for a time, and

was afterwards placed in the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, while a

memorial in stone, copying his monoplane in form, was let into the turf

at the point where he landed.

The second Channel crossing was not made until 1910, a year of new

records. The altitude record had been lifted to over 10,000 feet, the

duration record to 8 hours 12 minutes, and the distance for a single

flight to 365 miles, while a speed of over 65 miles an hour had been

achieved, when Jacques de Lesseps, son of the famous engineer of Suez

Canal and Panama fame, crossed from France to England on a Bleriot

monoplane. By this time flying had dropped so far from the marvellous

that this second conquest of the Channel aroused but slight public

interest in comparison with Bleriot’s feat.

The total weight of Bleriot’s machine in Cross Channel trim was 660

lbs., including the pilot and sufficient petrol for a three hours’

run; at a speed of 37 miles an hour, it was capable of carrying about

5 lbs. per square foot of lifting surface. It was the three-cylinder

25 horse-power Anzani motor which drove the machine for the flight.

Shortly after the flight had been accomplished, it was announced that

the Bleriot firm would construct similar machines for sale at £400

apiece--a good commentary on the prices of those days.

On June the 2nd, 1910, the third Channel crossing was made by C. S.

Rolls, who flew from Dover, got himself officially observed over French

soil at Barraques, and then flew back without landing. He was the first

to cross from the British side of the Channel and also was the first

aviator who made the double journey. By that time, however, distance

flights had so far increased as to reduce the value of the feat, and

thenceforth the Channel crossing was no exceptional matter. The honour,

second only to that of the Wright Brothers, remains with Bleriot.

XVI

LONDON TO MANCHESTER

The last of the great contests to arouse public enthusiasm was the

London to Manchester Flight of 1910. As far back as 1906, the _Daily

Mail_ had offered a prize of £10,000 to the first aviator who should

accomplish this journey, and, for a long time, the offer was regarded

as a perfectly safe one for any person or paper to make--it brought

forth far more ridicule than belief. _Punch_ offered a similar sum

to the first man who should swim the Atlantic and also for the first

flight to Mars and back within a week, but in the spring of 1910 Claude

Grahame White and Paulhan, the famous French pilot, entered for the

183 mile run on which the prize depended. Both these competitors flew

the Farman biplane with the 50 horse-power Gnome motor as propulsive

power. Grahame White surveyed the ground along the route, and the L.

& N. W. Railway Company, at his request, whitewashed the sleepers for

100 yards on the north side of all junctions to give him his direction

on the course. The machine was run out on to the starting ground at

Park Royal and set going at 5.19 a.m. on April 23rd. After a run of

100 yards, the machine went up over Wormwood Scrubs on its journey to

Normandy, near Hillmorten, which was the first arranged stopping place

_en route_; Grahame White landed here in good trim at 7.20 a.m., having

covered 75 miles and made a world’s record cross country flight. At

8.15 he set off again to come down at Whittington, four miles short of

Lichfield, at about 9.20, with his machine in good order except for a

cracked landing skid. Twice, on this second stage of the journey, he

had been caught by gusts of wind which turned the machine fully round

toward London, and, when over a wood near Tamworth, the engine stopped

through a defect in the balance springs of two exhaust valves; although

it started up again after a 100 foot glide, it did not give enough

power to give him safety in the gale he was facing. The rising wind

kept him on the ground throughout the day, and, though he hoped for

better weather, the gale kept up until the Sunday evening. The men in

charge of the machine during its halt had attempted to hold the machine

down instead of anchoring it with stakes and ropes, and, in consequence

of this, the wind blew the machine over on its back, breaking the upper

planes and the tail. Grahame White had to return to London, while the

damaged machine was prepared for a second flight. The conditions of the

competition enacted that the full journey should be completed within 24

hours, which made return to the starting ground inevitable.

Louis Paulhan, who had just arrived with his Farman machine,

immediately got it unpacked and put together in order to be ready to

make his attempt for the prize as soon as the weather conditions should

admit. At 5.31 p.m., on April 27th, he went up from Hendon and had

travelled 50 miles when Grahame White, informed of his rival’s start,

set out to overtake him. Before nightfall Paulhan landed at Lichfield,

117 miles from London, while Grahame White had to come down at Roden,

only 60 miles out. The English aviator’s chance was not so small as it

seemed, for, as Latham had found in his cross-Channel attempts, engine

failure was more the rule than the exception, and a very little thing

might reverse the relative positions.

A special train accompanied Paulhan along the North-Western route,

conveying Madame Paulhan, Henry Farman, and the mechanics who fitted

the Farman biplane together. Paulhan himself, who had flown at a height

of 1,000 feet, spent the night at Lichfield, starting again at 4.9 a.m.

on the 28th, passing Stafford at 4.45, Crewe at 5.20, and landing at

Burnage, near Didsbury, at 5.32, having had a clean run.

Meanwhile, Grahame White had made a most heroic attempt to beat his

rival. An hour before dawn on the 28th, he went to the small field in

which his machine had landed, and in the darkness managed to make an

ascent from ground which made starting difficult even in daylight.

Purely by instinct and his recollection of the aspect of things the

night before, he had to clear telegraph wires and a railway bridge,

neither of which he could possibly see at that hour. His engine, too,

was faltering, and it was obvious to those who witnessed his start that

its note was far from perfect.

At 3.50 he was over Nuneaton and making good progress; between

Atherstone and Lichfield the wind caught him and the engine failed more

and more, until at 4.13 in the morning he was forced to come to earth,

having covered 6 miles less distance than in his first attempt. It was

purely a case of engine failure, for, with full power, he would have

passed over Paulhan just as the latter was preparing for the restart.

Taking into consideration the two machines, there is little doubt

that Grahame White showed the greater flying skill, although he lost

the prize. After landing and hearing of Paulhan’s victory, on which he

wired congratulations, he made up his mind to fly to Manchester within

the 24 hours. He started at 5 o’clock in the afternoon from Polesworth,

his landing place, but was forced to land at 5.30 at Whittington, where

he had landed on the previous Saturday. The wind, which had forced his

descent, fell again and permitted of starting once more; on this third

stage he reached Lichfield, only to make his final landing at 7.15

p.m., near the Trent Valley station. The defective running of the Gnome

engine prevented his completing the course, and his Farman machine had

to be brought back to London by rail.

The presentation of the prize to Paulhan was made the occasion for

the announcement of a further competition, consisting of a 1,000 mile

flight round a part of Great Britain. In this, nineteen competitors

started, and only four finished; the end of the race was a great

fight between Beaumont and Vedrines, both of whom scorned weather

conditions in their determination to win. Beaumont made the distance

in a flying time of 22 hours 28 minutes 19 seconds, and Vedrines

covered the journey in a little over 23½ hours. Valentine came third

on a Deperdussin monoplane and S. F. Cody on his Cathedral biplane was

fourth. This was in 1911, and by that time heavier-than-air flight had

so far advanced that some pilots had had war experience in the Italian

campaign in Tripoli, while long cross-country flights were an everyday

event, and bad weather no longer counted.

XVII

A SUMMARY, TO 1911

There is so much overlapping in the crowded story of the first years

of successful power-driven flight that at this point it is advisable

to make a concise chronological survey of the chief events of the

period of early development, although much of this is of necessity

recapitulation. The story begins, of course, with Orville Wright’s

first flight of 852 feet at Kitty Hawk on December 19th, 1903. The

next event of note was Wright’s flight of 11.12 miles in 18 minutes

9 seconds at Dayton, Ohio, on September 26th, 1905, this being the

first officially recorded flight. On October 4th of the same year,

Wright flew 20.75 miles in 33 minutes 17 seconds, this being the first

flight of over 20 miles ever made. Then on September 14th, 1906,

Alberto Santos-Dumont made a flight of eight seconds on the second

heavier-than-air machine he had constructed. It was a big box-kite-like

machine; this was the second power-driven aeroplane in Europe to

fly, for although Santos-Dumont’s first machine produced in 1905 was

reckoned an unsuccessful design, it had actually got off the ground for

brief periods. Louis Bleriot came into the ring on April 5th, 1907,

with a first flight of 6 seconds on a Bleriot monoplane, his eighth but

first successful construction.

Henry Farman made his first appearance in the history of aviation

with a flight of 935 feet on a Voisin biplane on October 15th, 1907.

On October 25th, in a flight of 2,530 feet, he made the first recorded

turn in the air, and on March 29th, 1908, carrying Leon Delagrange on

a Voisin biplane, he made the first passenger flight. On April 10th of

this year, Delagrange, in flying 1½ miles, made the first flight in

Europe exceeding a mile in distance. He improved on this by flying 10½

miles at Milan on June 22nd, while on July 8th, at Turin, he took up

Madame Peltier, the first woman to make an aeroplane flight.

Wilbur Wright, coming over to Europe, made his first appearance on the

Continent with a flight of 1¾ minutes at Hunaudieres, France, on August

8th, 1908. On September 6th, at Châlons, he flew for 1 hour 4 minutes

26 seconds with a passenger, this being the first flight in which an

hour in the air was exceeded with a passenger on board.

On September 12th, 1908, Orville Wright, flying at Fort Meyer,

U.S.A., with Lieut. Selfridge as passenger, crashed his machine,

suffering severe injuries, while Selfridge was killed. This was

the first aeroplane fatality. On October 30th, 1908, Farman made

the first cross-country flight, covering the distance of 17 miles

between Bouy and Rheims. The next day, Louis Bleriot, in flying from

Toury to Artenay, made two landings _en route_, this being the first

cross-country flight with landings. On the last day of the year, Wilbur

Wright won the Michelin Cup at Auvours with a flight of 90 miles,

which, lasting 2 hours 20 minutes 23 seconds, exceeded 2 hours in the

air for the first time.

On January 2nd, 1909, S. F. Cody opened the New Year by making the

first observed flight at Farnborough on a British Army aeroplane. It

was not until July 18th of 1909 that the first European height record

deserving of mention was put up by Paulhan, who achieved a height of

450 feet on a Voisin biplane. This preceded Latham’s first attempt to

fly the Channel by two days, and five days later, on the 25th of the

month, Bleriot made the first Channel crossing. The Rheims Meeting

followed on August 22nd, and it was a great day for aviation when nine

machines were seen in the air at once. It was here that Farman, with a

118 mile flight, first exceeded the hundred miles, and Latham raised

the height record officially to 500 feet, though actually he claimed to

have reached 1,200 feet. On September 8th, Cody, flying from Aldershot,

made a 40 mile journey, setting up a new cross-country record. On

October 19th the Comte de Lambert flew from Juvisy to Paris, rounded

the Eiffel Tower and flew back. J. T. C. Moore-Brabazon made the first

circular mile flight by a British aviator on an all-British machine in

Great Britain, on October 30th, flying a Short biplane with a Green

engine. Paulhan, flying at Brooklands on November 2nd, accomplished 96

miles in 2 hours 48 minutes, creating a British distance record; on

the following day, Henry Farman made a flight of 150 miles in 4 hours

22 minutes at Mourmelon, and on the 5th of the month, Paulhan, flying

a Farman biplane, made a world’s height record of 977 feet. This,

however, was not to stand long, for Latham got up to 1,560 feet on an

Antoinette at Mourmelon on December 1st. December 31st witnessed the

first flight in Ireland, made by H. Ferguson on a monoplane which he

himself had constructed at Downshire Park, Lisburn.

These, thus briefly summarised, are the principal events up to the end

of 1909. 1910 opened with tragedy, for on January 4th Leon Delagrange,

one of the greatest pilots of his time, was killed while flying at

Pau. The machine was the Bleriot XI which Delagrange had used at the

Doncaster meeting, and to which Delagrange had fitted a 50 horse-power

Gnome engine, increasing the speed of the machine from its original

30 to 45 miles per hour. With the Rotary Gnome engine there was of

necessity a certain gyroscopic effect, the strain of which proved too

much for the machine. Delagrange had come to assist in the inauguration

of the Croix d’Hins aerodrome, and had twice lapped the course at

a height of about 60 feet. At the beginning of the third lap, the

strain of the Gnome engine became too great for the machine; one wing

collapsed as if the stay wires had broken, and the whole machine turned

over and fell, killing Delagrange.

On January 7th Latham, flying at Mourmelon, first made the vertical

kilometre and dedicated the record to Delagrange, this being the day

of his friend’s funeral. The record was thoroughly authenticated by

a large registering barometer which Latham carried, certified by the

officials of the French Aero Club. Three days later Paulhan, who was at

Los Angeles, California, raised the height record to 4,146 feet.

On January 25th the Brussels Exhibition opened, when the Antoinette

monoplane, the Gaffaux and Hanriot monoplanes, together with the

d’Hespel aeroplane, were shown; there were also the dirigible Belgica

and a number of interesting aero engines, including a German airship

engine and a four-cylinder 50 horse-power Miesse, this last air-cooled

by means of fans driving a current of air through air jackets

surrounding fluted cylinders.

On April 2nd Hubert Le Blon, flying a Bleriot with an Anzani engine,

was killed while flying over the water. His machine was flying quite

steadily, when it suddenly heeled over and came down sideways into the

sea; the motor continued running for some seconds and the whole machine

was drawn under water. When boats reached the spot, Le Blon was found

lying back in the driving seat floating just below the surface. He had

done good flying at Doncaster, and at Heliopolis had broken the world’s

speed records for 5 and 10 kilometres. The accident was attributed to

fracture of one of the wing stay wires when running into a gust of wind.

The next notable event was Paulhan’s London-Manchester flight, of which

full details have already been given. In May Captain Bertram Dickson,

flying at the Tours meeting, beat all the Continental fliers whom

he encountered, including Chavez, the Peruvian, who later made the

first crossing of the Alps. Dickson was the first British winner of

international aviation prizes.

C. S. Rolls, of whom full details have already been given, was killed

at Bournemouth on July 12th, being the first British aviator of note to

be killed in an aeroplane accident. His return trip across the Channel

had taken place on June 2nd. Chavez, who was rapidly leaping into

fame, as a pilot, raised the British height record to 5,750 feet while

flying at Blackpool on August 3rd. On the 11th of that month, Armstrong

Drexel, flying a Bleriot, made a world’s height record of 6,745 feet.

It was in 1910 that the British War Office first began fully to realise

that there might be military possibilities in heavier-than-air flying.

C. S. Rolls had placed a Wright biplane at the disposal of the military

authorities, and Cody, as already recorded, had been experimenting with

a biplane type of his own for some long period. Such development as was

achieved was mainly due to the enterprise and energy of Colonel J. E.

Capper, C.B., appointed to the superintendency of the Balloon Factory

and Balloon School at Farnborough in 1906. Colonel Capper’s retirement

in 1910 brought (then) Mr Mervyn O’Gorman to command, and by that

time the series of successes of the Cody biplane, together with the

proved efficiency of the aeroplane in various civilian meetings, had

convinced the British military authorities that the mastery of the air

did not lie altogether with dirigible airships, and it may be said that

in 1910 the British War Office first began seriously to consider the

possibilities of the aeroplane, though two years more were to elapse

before the formation of the Royal Flying Corps marked full realisation

of its value.

[Illustration: Chavez flying across the Alps.]

A triumph and a tragedy were combined in September of 1910. On the

23rd of the month, Georges Chavez set out to fly across the Alps on

a Bleriot monoplane. Prizes had been offered by the Milan Aviation

Committee for a flight from Brigue in Switzerland over the Simplon

Pass to Milan, a distance of 94 miles with a minimum height of 6,600

feet above sea level. Chavez started at 1.30 p.m. on the 23rd, and

41 minutes later he reached Domodossola, 25 miles distant. Here he

descended, numbed with the cold of the journey; it was said that the

wings of his machine collapsed when about 30 feet from the ground, but

however this may have been, he smashed the machine on landing, and

broke both legs, in addition to sustaining other serious injuries. He

lay in hospital until the 27th September, when he died, having given

his life to the conquest of the Alps. His death in the moment of

success was as great a tragedy as were those of Pilcher and Lilienthal.

The day after Chavez’s death, Maurice Tabuteau flew across the

Pyrenees, landing in the square at Biarritz. On December 30th,

Tabuteau made a flight of 365 miles in 7 hours 48 minutes. Farman,

on December 18th, had flown for over 8 hours, but his total distance

was only 282 miles. The autumn of this year was also noteworthy for

the fact that aeroplanes were first successfully used in the French

Military Manœuvres. The British War Office, by the end of the year, had

bought two machines, a military type Farman and a Paulhan, ignoring

British experimenters and aeroplane builders of proved reliability.

These machines, added to an old Bleriot two-seater, appear to have

constituted the British aeroplane fleet of the period.

There were by this time three main centres of aviation in England,

apart from Cody, alone on Laffan’s Plain. These three were Brooklands,

Hendon, and the Isle of Sheppey, and of the three Brooklands was

chief. Here such men as Graham Gilmour, Rippen, Leake, Wickham, and

Thomas persistently experimented. Hendon had its own little group, and

Shellbeach, Isle of Sheppey, held such giants of those days as C. S.

Rolls and Moore Brabazon, together with Cecil Grace and Rawlinson. One

or other, and sometimes all of these were deserted on the occasion of

some meeting or other, but they were the points where the spade work

was done, Brooklands taking chief place. ‘If you want the early history

of flying in England, it is there,’ one of the early school remarked,

pointing over toward Brooklands course.

1911 inaugurated a new series of records of varying character. On

the 17th January, E. B. Ely, an American, flew from the shore of San

Francisco to the U.S. cruiser _Pennsylvania_, landing on the cruiser,

and then flew back to the shore. The British military designing of

aeroplanes had been taken up at Farnborough by G. H. de Havilland, who

by the end of January was flying a machine of his own design, when he

narrowly escaped becoming a casualty through collision with an obstacle

on the ground, which swept the undercarriage from his machine.

A list of certified pilots of the countries of the world was issued

early in 1911, showing certificates granted up to the end of 1910.

France led the way easily with 353 pilots; England came next with 57,

and Germany next with 46; Italy owned 32, Belgium 27, America 26,

and Austria 19; Holland and Switzerland had 6 aviators apiece, while

Denmark followed with 3, Spain with 2, and Sweden with 1. The first

certificate in England was that of J. T. C. Moore-Brabazon, while Louis

Bleriot was first on the French list and Glenn Curtiss, first holder of

an American certificate, also held the second French brevet.

On the 7th March, Eugene Renaux won the Michelin Grand Prize by flying

from the French Aero Club ground at St Cloud and landing on the Puy de

Dome. The landing, which was one of the conditions of the prize, was

one of the most dangerous conditions ever attached to a competition;

it involved dropping on to a little plateau 150 yards square, with

a possibility of either smashing the machine against the face of the

mountain, or diving over the edge of the plateau into the gulf beneath.

The length of the journey was slightly over 200 miles and the height of

the landing point 1,465 metres, or roughly 4,500 feet above sea-level.

Renaux carried a passenger, Doctor Senoucque, a member of Charcot’s

South Polar Expedition.

The 1911 Aero Exhibition held at Olympia bore witness to the enormous

strides made in construction, more especially by British designers,

between 1908 and the opening of the Show. The Bristol Firm showed three

machines, including a military biplane, and the first British-built

biplane with tractor screw. The Cody biplane, with its enormous size

rendering it a prominent feature of the show, was exhibited. Its

designer anticipated later engines by expressing his desire for a motor

of 150 horse-power, which in his opinion was necessary to get the best

results from the machine. The then famous Dunne monoplane was exhibited

at this show, its planes being V-shaped in plan, with apex leading.

It embodied the results of very lengthy experiments carried out both

with gliders and power-driven machines by Colonel Capper, Lieut. Gibbs,

and Lieut. Dunne, and constituted the longest step so far taken in the

direction of inherent stability.

Such forerunners of the notable planes of the war period as the Martin

Handasyde, the Nieuport, Sopwith, Bristol, and Farman machines, were

features of the show; the Handley-Page monoplane, with a span of 32

feet over all, a length of 22 feet, and a weight of 422 lbs., bore no

relation at all to the twin-engined giant which later made this firm

famous. In the matter of engines, the principal survivals to the

present day, of which this show held specimens, were the Gnome, Green,

Renault air-cooled, Mercedes four-cylinder dirigible engine of 115

horse-power, and 120 horse-power Wolseley of eight cylinders for use

with dirigibles.

On April 12th of 1911, Paprier, instructor at the Bleriot school at

Hendon, made the first non-stop flight between London and Paris. He

left the aerodrome at 1.37 p.m., and arrived at Issy-les-Moulineaux

at 5.33 p.m., thus travelling 250 miles in a little under 4 hours. He

followed the railway route practically throughout, crossing from Dover

to nearly opposite Calais, keeping along the coast to Boulogne, and

then following the Nord Railway to Amiens, Beauvais, and finally Paris.

In May, the Paris-Madrid race took place; Vedrines, flying a Morane

biplane, carried off the prize by first completing the distance of 732

miles. The Paris-Rome race of 916 miles was won in the same month by

Beaumont, flying a Bleriot monoplane. In July, Kœnig won the German

National Circuit race of 1,168 miles on an Albatross biplane. This was

practically simultaneous with the Circuit of Britain won by Beaumont,

who covered 1,010 miles on a Bleriot monoplane, having already won the

Paris-Brussels-London-Paris Circuit of 1,080 miles, this also on a

Bleriot. It was in August that a new world’s height record of 11,152

feet was set up by Captain Felix at Etampes, while on the 7th of the

month Renaux flew nearly 600 miles on a Maurice Farman machine in 12

hours. Cody and Valentine were keeping interest alive in the Circuit of

Britain race, although this had long been won, by determinedly plodding

on at finishing the course.

[Illustration: Army Aeroplane Tests on Salisbury Plain, 2nd August,

1912. Védrines passing Cody’s hangar.]

On September 9th, the first aerial post was tried between Hendon and

Windsor, as an experiment in sending mails by aeroplane. Gustave Hamel

flew from Hendon to Windsor and back in a strong wind. A few days

later, Hamel went on strike, refusing to carry further mails unless

the promoters of the Aerial Postal Service agreed to pay compensation

to Hubert, who fractured both his legs on the 11th of the month while

engaged in aero postal work. The strike ended on September 25th, when

Hamel resumed mail-carrying in consequence of the capitulation of the

Postmaster-General, who agreed to set aside £500 as compensation to

Hubert.

September also witnessed the completion in America of a flight across

the Continent, a distance of 2,600 miles. The only competitor who

completed the full distance was C. P. Rogers, who was disqualified

through failing to comply with the time limit. Rogers needed so many

replacements to his machine on the journey that, expressing it in

American fashion, he arrived with practically a different aeroplane

from that with which he started.

With regard to the aerial postal service, analysis of the matter

carried and the cost of the service seemed to show that with a special

charge of one shilling for letters and sixpence for post cards, the

revenue just balanced the expenditure. It was not possible to keep to

the time-table as, although the trials were made in the most favourable

season of the year, aviation was not sufficiently advanced to admit of

facing all weathers and complying with time-table regulations.

French military aeroplane trials took place at Rheims in October,

the noteworthy machines being Antoinette, Farman, Nieuport, and

Deperdussin. The tests showed the Nieuport monoplane with Gnome

motor as first in position; the Breguet biplane was second, and the

Deperdussin monoplanes third. The first five machines in order of merit

were all engined with the Gnome motor.

The records quoted for 1911 form the best evidence that can be given of

advance in design and performance during the year. It will be seen that

the days of the giants were over; design was becoming more and more

standardised and aviation not so much a matter of individual courage

and even daring, as of the reliability of the machine and its engine.

This was the first year in which the twin-engined aeroplane made its

appearance, and it was the year, too, in which flying may be said to

have grown so common that the ‘meetings’ which began with Rheims were

hardly worth holding, owing to the fact that increase in height and

distance flown rendered it no longer necessary for a would-be spectator

of a flight to pay half a crown and enter an enclosure. Henceforth,

flying as a spectacle was very little to be considered; its commercial

aspects were talked of, and to a very slight degree exploited, but,

more and more, the fact that the aeroplane was primarily an engine

of war, and the growing German menace against the peace of the

world combined to point the way of speediest development, and the

arrangements for the British Military Trials to be held in August,

1912, showed that even the British War Office was waking up to the

potentialities of this new engine of war.

XVIII

A SUMMARY, TO 1914

Consideration of the events in the years immediately preceding the

War must be limited to as brief a summary as possible, this not

only because the full history of flying achievements is beyond the

compass of any single book, but also because, viewing the matter in

perspective, the years 1903–1911 show up as far more important as

regards both design and performance. From 1912 to August of 1914, the

development of aeronautics was hindered by the fact that it had not

progressed far enough to form a real commercial asset in any country.

The meetings which drew vast concourses of people to such places as

Rheims and Bournemouth may have been financial successes at first, but,

as flying grew more common and distances and heights extended, a great

many people found it other than worth while to pay for admission to an

aerodrome. The business of taking up passengers for pleasure flights

was not financially successful, and, although schemes for commercial

routes were talked of, the aeroplane was not sufficiently advanced

to warrant the investment of hard cash in any of these projects.

There was a deadlock; further development was necessary in order to

secure financial aid, and at the same time financial aid was necessary

in order to secure further development. Consequently, neither was

forthcoming.

This is viewing the matter in a broad and general sense; there were

firms, especially in France, but also in England and America, which

looked confidently for the great days of flying to arrive, and regarded

their sunk capital as investment which would eventually bring its due

return. But when one looks back on those years, the firms in question

stand out as exceptions to the general run of people, who regarded

aeronautics as something extremely scientific, exceedingly dangerous,

and very expensive. The very fame that was attained by such pilots as

became casualties conduced to the advertisement of every death, and

the dangers attendant on the use of heavier-than-air machines became

greatly exaggerated; considering the matter as one of number of miles

flown, even in the early days, flying exacted no more toll in human

life than did railways or road motors in the early stages of their

development. But to take one instance, when C. S. Rolls was killed at

Bournemouth by reason of a faulty tail-plane, the fact was shouted to

the whole world with almost as much vehemence as characterised the

announcement of the _Titanic_ sinking in mid-Atlantic.

[Illustration: Army Aeroplane Tests on Salisbury Plain.

Cody on his new aeroplane.]

Even in 1911 the deadlock was apparent; meetings were falling off in

attendance, and consequently in financial benefit to the promoters;

there remained, however, the knowledge--for it was proved past

question--that the aeroplane in its then stage of development was a

necessity to every army of the world. France had shown this by the more

than interest taken by the French Government in what had developed into

an Air Section of the French army; Germany, of course, was hypnotised

by Count Zeppelin and his dirigibles, to say nothing of the Parsevals

which had been proved useful military accessories; in spite of

this, it was realised in Germany that the aeroplane also had its place

in military affairs. England came into the field with the military

aeroplane trials of August 1st to 15th, 1912, barely two months after

the founding of the Royal Flying Corps.

When the R.F.C. was founded--and in fact up to two years after its

founding--in no country were the full military potentialities of the

aeroplane realised; it was regarded as an accessory to cavalry for

scouting more than as an independent arm; the possibilities of bombing

were very vaguely considered, and the fact that it might be possible to

shoot from an aeroplane was hardly considered at all. The conditions of

the British Military Trials of 1912 gave to the War Office the option

of purchasing for £1,000 any machine that might be awarded a prize.

Machines were required, among other things, to carry a useful load of

350 lbs. in addition to equipment, with fuel and oil for 4½ hours; thus

loaded, they were required to fly for 3 hours, attaining an altitude of

4,500 feet, maintaining a height of 1,500 feet for 1 hour, and climbing

1,000 feet from the ground at a rate of 200 feet per minute, ‘although

300 feet per minute is desirable.’ They had to attain a speed of not

less than 55 miles per hour in a calm, and be able to plane down to the

ground in a calm from not more than 1,000 feet with engine stopped,

traversing 6,000 feet horizontal distance. For those days, the landing

demands were rather exacting; the machine should be able to rise

without damage from long grass, clover, or harrowed land, in 100 yards

in a calm, and should be able to land without damage on any cultivated

ground, including rough ploughed land, and, when landing on smooth turf

in a calm, be able to pull up within 75 yards of the point of first

touching the ground. It was required that pilot and observer should

have as open a view as possible to front and flanks, and they should be

so shielded from the wind as to be able to communicate with each other.

These are the main provisions out of the set of conditions laid down

for competitors, but a considerable amount of leniency was shown by the

authorities in the competition, who obviously wished to try out every

machine entered and see what were its capabilities.

The beginning of the competition consisted in assembling the machines

against time from road trim to flying trim. Cody’s machine, which was

the only one to be delivered by air, took 1 hour and 35 minutes to

assemble; the best assembling time was that of the Avro, which was got

into flying trim in 14 minutes 30 seconds. This machine came to grief

with Lieut. Parke as pilot, on the 7th, through landing at very high

speed on very bad ground; a securing wire of the undercarriage broke in

the landing, throwing the machine forward on to its nose and then over

on its back. Parke was uninjured, fortunately; the damaged machine was

sent off to Manchester for repair and was back again on the 16th of

August.

It is to be noted that by this time the Royal Aircraft Factory was

building aeroplanes of the B.E. and F.E. types, but at the same time

it is also to be noted that British military interest in engines

was not sufficient to bring them up to the high level attained by

the planes, and it is notorious that even the outbreak of war found

England incapable of providing a really satisfactory aero engine. In

the 1912 Trials, the only machines which actually completed all their

tests were the Cody biplane, the French Deperdussin, the Hanriot, two

Bleriots and a Maurice Farman. The first prize of £4,000, open to all

the world, went to F. S. Cody’s British-built biplane, which complied

with all the conditions of the competition and well earned its official

acknowledgment of supremacy. The machine climbed at 280 feet per minute

and reached a height of 5,000 feet, while in the landing test, in spite

of its great weight and bulk, it pulled up on grass in 56 yards. The

total weight was 2,690 lbs. when fully loaded, and the total area of

supporting surface was 500 square feet; the motive power was supplied

by a six-cylinder 120 horse-power Austro-Daimler engine. The second

prize was taken by A. Deperdussin for the French-built Deperdussin

monoplane. Cody carried off the only prize awarded for a British-built

plane, this being the sum of £1,000, and consolation prizes of £500

each were awarded to the British Deperdussin Company and The British

and Colonial Aeroplane Company, this latter soon to become famous as

makers of the Bristol aeroplane, of which the war honours are still

fresh in men’s minds.

While these trials were in progress Audemars accomplished the first

flight between Paris and Berlin, setting out from Issy early in the

morning of August 18th, landing at Rheims to refill his tanks within

an hour and a half, and then coming into bad weather which forced him

to land successively at Mezieres, Laroche, Bochum, and finally nearly

Gersenkirchen, where, owing to a leaky petrol tank, the attempt to win

the prize offered for the first flight between the two capitals had to

be abandoned after 300 miles had been covered, as the time limit was

definitely exceeded. Audemars determined to get through to Berlin, and

set off at 5 in the morning of the 19th, only to be brought down by

fog; starting off again at 9.15 he landed at Hanover, was off again at

1.35, and reached the Johannisthal aerodrome in the suburbs of Berlin

at 6.48 that evening.

As early as 1910 the British Government possessed some ten aeroplanes,

and in 1911 the force developed into the Army Air Battalion, with the

aeroplanes under the control of Major J. H. Fulton, R.F.A. Toward the

end of 1911 the Air Battalion was handed over to (then) Brig.-Gen. D.

Henderson, Director of Military Training. On June 6th, 1912, the Royal

Flying Corps was established with a military wing under Major F. H.

Sykes and a naval wing under Commander C. R. Samson. A joint Naval and

Military Flying School was established at Upavon with Captain Godfrey

M. Paine, R.N., as Commandant and Major Hugh Trenchard as Assistant

Commandant. The Royal Aircraft Factory brought out the B.E. and F.E.

types of biplane, admittedly superior to any other British design of

the period, and an Aircraft Inspection Department was formed under

Major J. H. Fulton. The military wing of the R.F.C. was equipped almost

entirely with machines of Royal Aircraft Factory design, but the Navy

preferred to develop British private enterprise by buying machines from

private firms. On July 1st, 1914, the establishment of the Royal Naval

Air Service marked the definite separation of the military and naval

sides of British aviation, but the Central Flying School at Upavon

continued to train pilots for both services.

[Illustration: Army Aeroplane Tests on Salisbury Plain, 2nd August,

1912.

The new Army aeroplane.]

It is difficult at this length of time, so far as the military wing

was concerned, to do full justice to the spade work done by

Major-General Sir David Henderson in the early days. Just before war

broke out, British military air strength consisted officially of eight

squadrons, each of 12 machines and 13 in reserve, with the necessary

complement of road transport. As a matter of fact, there were three

complete squadrons and a part of a fourth which constituted the force

sent to France at the outbreak of war. The value of General Henderson’s

work lies in the fact that, in spite of official stinginess and meagre

supplies of every kind, he built up a skeleton organisation so elastic

and so well thought out that it conformed to war requirements as well

as even the German plans fitted in with their aerial needs. On the 4th

of August, 1914, the nominal British air strength of the military wing

was 179 machines. Of these, 82 machines proceeded to France, landing

at Amiens and flying to Maubeuge to play their part in the great

retreat with the British Expeditionary Force, in which they suffered

heavy casualties both in personnel and machines. The history of their

exploits, however, belongs to the War period.

The development of the aeroplane between 1912 and 1914 can be judged

by comparison of the requirements of the British War Office in 1912

with those laid down in an official memorandum issued by the War Office

in February, 1914. This latter called for a light scout aeroplane, a

single-seater, with fuel capacity to admit of 300 miles range and a

speed range of from 50 to 85 miles per hour. It had to be able to climb

3,500 feet in five minutes, and the engine had to be so constructed

that the pilot could start it without assistance. At the same time,

a heavier type of machine for reconnaissance work was called for,

carrying fuel for a 200 mile flight with a speed range of between 35

and 60 miles per hour, carrying both pilot and observer. It was to be

equipped with a wireless telegraphy set, and be capable of landing

over a 30 foot vertical obstacle and coming to rest within a hundred

yards’ distance from the obstacle in a wind of not more than 15 miles

per hour. A third requirement was a heavy type of fighting aeroplane

accommodating pilot and gunner with machine gun and ammunition, having

a speed range of between 45 and 75 miles per hour and capable of

climbing 3,500 feet in 8 minutes. It was required to carry fuel for

a 300 mile flight and to give the gunner a clear field of fire in

every direction up to 30 degrees on each side of the line of flight.

Comparison of these specifications with those of the 1912 trials

will show that although fighting, scouting, and reconnaissance types

had been defined, the development of performance compared with the

marvellous development of the earlier years of achieved flight was

small.

Yet the records of those years show that here and there an outstanding

design was capable of great things. On the 9th September, 1912,

Vedrines, flying a Deperdussin monoplane at Chicago, attained a speed

of 105 miles an hour. On August 12th G. de Havilland took a passenger

to a height of 10,560 feet over Salisbury Plain, flying a B.E. biplane

with a 70 horse-power Renault engine. The work of de Havilland may be

said to have been the principal influence in British military aeroplane

design, and there is no doubt that his genius was in great measure

responsible for the excellence of the early B.E. and F.E. types.

On the 31st May, 1913, H. G. Hawker, flying at Brooklands, reached

a height of 11,450 feet on a Sopwith biplane engined with an 80

horse-power Gnome engine. On June 16th, with the same type of machine

and engine, he achieved 12,900 feet. On the 2nd October, in the same

year, a Grahame White biplane with 120 horse-power Austro-Daimler

engine, piloted by Louis Noel, made a flight of just under 20 minutes

carrying 9 passengers. In France a Nieuport monoplane piloted by G.

Legagneaux attained a height of 6,120 metres, or just over 20,070 feet,

this being the world’s height record. It is worthy of note that of the

world’s aviation records as passed by the International Aeronautical

Federation up to June 30th, 1914, only one, that of Noel, is credited

to Great Britain.

Just as records were made abroad, with one exception, so were the

really efficient engines. In England there was the Green engine, but

the outbreak of war found the Royal Flying Corps with 80 horse-power

Gnomes, 70 horse-power Renaults, and one or two Antoinette motors, but

not one British, while the Royal Naval Air Service had got 20 machines

with engines of similar origin, mainly land planes in which the wheeled

undercarriages had been replaced by floats. France led in development,

and there is no doubt that at the outbreak of war, the French military

aeroplane service was the best in the world. It was mainly composed of

Maurice Farman two-seater biplanes and Bleriot monoplanes--the latter

type banned for a period on account of a number of serious accidents

that took place in 1912.

America had its Army Aviation School, and employed Burgess-Wright

and Curtiss machines for the most part. In the pre-war years, once

the Wright Brothers had accomplished their task, America’s chief

accomplishment consisted in the development of the ‘Flying Boat,’

alternatively named with characteristic American clumsiness, ‘The

Hydro-Aeroplane.’ In February of 1911, Glenn Curtiss attached a float

to a machine similar to that with which he won the first Gordon-Bennett

Air Contest and made his first flying boat experiment. From this

beginning he developed the boat form of body which obviated the use and

troubles of floats--his hydroplane became its own float.

Mainly owing to greater engine reliability the duration records

steadily increased. By September of 1912 Fourny, on a Maurice Farman

biplane, was able to accomplish a distance of 628 miles without a

landing, remaining in the air for 13 hours 17 minutes and just over

57 seconds. By 1914 this was raised by the German aviator, Landemann,

to 21 hours 48¾ seconds. The nature of this last record shows that

the factors in such a record had become mere engine endurance, fuel

capacity, and capacity of the pilot to withstand air conditions for a

prolonged period, rather than any exceptional flying skill.

[Illustration: Flight of full-size Langley Aerodrome, piloted by Glenn

H. Curtiss, 2nd June 1914, at Hammondsport, N.Y.

Original machine and engine, with the addition of pontoons which

weighed 300 lbs.]

Let these years be judged by the records they produced, and even then

they are rather dull. The glory of achievement such as characterised

the work of the Wright Brothers, of Bleriot, and of the giants of

the early days, had passed; the splendid courage, the patriotism

and devotion of the pilots of the War period had not yet come to

being. There was progress, past question, but it was mechanical,

hardly ever inspired. The study of climatic conditions was definitely

begun and aeronautical metereology came to being, while another

development already noted was the fitting of wireless telegraphy to

heavier-than-air machines, as instanced in the British War Office

specification of February, 1914. These, however, were inevitable;

it remained for the War to force development beyond the inevitable,

producing in five years that which under normal circumstances might

easily have occupied fifty--the aeroplane of to-day; for, as already

remarked, there was a deadlock, and any survey that may be made of

the years 1912–1914, no matter how superficial, must take it into

account with a view to retaining correct perspective in regard to the

development of the aeroplane.

There is one story of 1914 that must be included, however briefly, in

any record of aeronautical achievement, since it demonstrates past

question that to Professor Langley really belongs the honour of having

achieved a design which would ensure actual flight, although the

series of accidents which attended his experiments gave to the Wright

Brothers the honour of first leaving the earth and descending without

accident in a power-driven heavier-than-air machine. In March, 1914,

Glenn Curtiss was invited to send a flying boat to Washington for

the celebration of ‘Langley Day,’ when he remarked, ‘I would like to

put the Langley aeroplane itself in the air.’ In consequence of this

remark, Secretary Walcot of the Smithsonian Institution authorised

Curtiss to re-canvas the original Langley aeroplane and launch it

either under its own power or with a more recent engine and propeller.

Curtiss completed this, and had the machine ready on the shores of Lake

Keuka, Hammondsport, N.Y., by May. The main object of these renewed

trials was to show whether the original Langley machine was capable

of sustained free flight with a pilot, and a secondary object was to

determine more fully the advantages of the tandem monoplane type; thus

the aeroplane was first flown as nearly as possible in its original

condition, and then with such modifications as seemed desirable. The

only difference made for the first trials consisted in fitting floats

with connecting trusses; the steel main frame, wings, rudders, engine,

and propellers were substantially as they had been in 1903. The pilot

had the same seat under the main frame and the same general system of

control. He could raise or lower the craft by moving the rear rudder up

and down; he could steer right or left by moving the vertical rudder.

He had no ailerons nor wing-warping mechanism, but for lateral balance

depended on the dihedral angle of the wings and upon suitable movements

of his weight or of the vertical rudder.

After the adjustments for actual flight had been made in the Curtiss

factory, according to the minute descriptions contained in the Langley

Memoir on Mechanical Flight, the aeroplane was taken to the shore of

Lake Keuka, beside the Curtiss hangars, and assembled for launching.

On a clear morning (May 28th) and in a mild breeze, the craft was

lifted on to the water by a dozen men and set going, with Mr Curtiss

at the steering wheel, esconced in the little boat-shaped car under

the forward part of the frame. The four-winged craft, pointed somewhat

across the wind, went skimming over the wavelets, then automatically

headed into the wind, rose in level poise, soared gracefully for

150 feet, and landed softly on the water near the shore. Mr Curtiss

asserted that he could have flown farther, but, being unused to the

machine, imagined that the left wings had more resistance than the

right. The truth is that the aeroplane was perfectly balanced in wing

resistance, but turned on the water like a weather vane, owing to the

lateral pressure on its big rear rudder. Hence in future experiments

this rudder was made turnable about a vertical axis, as well as about

the horizontal axis used by Langley. Henceforth the little vertical

rudder under the frame was kept fixed and inactive.[7]

That the Langley aeroplane was subsequently fitted with an 80

horse-power Curtiss engine and successfully flown is of little interest

in such a record as this, except for the fact that with the weight

nearly doubled by the new engine and accessories the machine flew

successfully, and demonstrated the perfection of Langley’s design by

standing the strain. The point that is of most importance is that the

design itself proved a success and fully vindicated Langley’s work. At

the same time, it would be unjust to pass by the fact of the flight

without according to Curtiss due recognition of the way in which he

paid tribute to the genius of the pioneer by these experiments.

XIX

THE WAR PERIOD--I

Full record of aeronautical progress and of the accomplishments of

pilots in the years of the War would demand not merely a volume, but a

complete library, and even then it would be barely possible to pay full

tribute to the heroism of pilots of the war period. There are names

connected with that period of which the glory will not fade, names

such as Bishop, Guynemer, Boelcke, Ball, Fonck, Immelmann, and many

others that spring to mind as one recalls the ‘Aces’ of the period.

In addition to the pilots, there is the stupendous development of the

machines--stupendous when the length of the period in which it was

achieved is considered.

The fact that Germany was best prepared in the matter of

heavier-than-air service machines in spite of the German faith in the

dirigible is one more item of evidence as to who forced hostilities.

The Germans came into the field with well over 600 aeroplanes, mainly

two-seaters of standardised design, and with factories back in the

Fatherland turning out sufficient new machines to make good the

losses. There were a few single-seater scouts built for speed, and the

two-seater machines were all fitted with cameras and bomb-dropping

gear. Manœuvres had determined in the German mind what should be the

uses of the air fleet; there was photography of fortifications and

field works; signalling by Véry lights; spotting for the guns, and

scouting for news of enemy movements. The methodical German mind

had arranged all this beforehand, but had not allowed for the fact

that opponents might take counter-measures which would upset the

over-perfect mechanism of the air service just as effectually as the

great march on Paris was countered by the genius of Joffre.

The French Air Force at the beginning of the War consisted of upwards

of 600 machines. These, unlike the Germans, were not standardised, but

were of many and diverse types. In order to get replacements quickly

enough, the factories had to work on the designs they had, and thus for

a long time after the outbreak of hostilities standardisation was an

impossibility. The versatility of a Latin race in a measure compensated

for this; from the outset, the Germans tried to overwhelm the French

Air Force, but failed, since they had not the numerical superiority,

nor--this equally a determining factor--the versatility and resource

of the French pilots. They calculated on a 50 per cent superiority to

ensure success; they needed more nearly 400 per cent, for the German

fought to rule, avoiding risks whenever possible, and definitely

instructed to save both machines and pilots wherever possible.

French pilots, on the other hand, ran all the risks there were, got

news of German movements, bombed the enemy, and rapidly worked up

a very respectable anti-aircraft force which, whatever it may have

accomplished in the way of hitting German planes, got on the German

pilots’ nerves.

It has already been detailed how Britain sent over 82 planes as its

contribution to the military aerial force of 1914. These consisted of

Farman, Caudron, and Short biplanes, together with Bleriot, Deperdussin

and Nieuport monoplanes, certain R.A.F. types, and other machines of

which even the name barely survives--the resourceful Yankee entitles

them ‘orphans.’ It is on record that the work of providing spares might

have been rather complicated but for the fact that there were none.

There is no doubt that the Germans had made study of aerial military

needs just as thoroughly as they had perfected their ground

organisation. Thus there were 21 illuminated aircraft stations in

Germany before the War, the most powerful being at Weimar, where a

revolving electric flash of over 27 million candle-power was located.

Practically all German aeroplane tests in the period immediately

preceding the War were of a military nature, and quite a number of

reliability tests were carried out just on the other side of the French

frontier. Night flying and landing were standardised items in the

German pilot’s course of instruction while they were still experimental

in other countries, and a system of signals was arranged which rendered

the instructional course as perfect as might be.

The Belgian contribution consisted of about twenty machines fit for

active service and another twenty which were more or less useful as

training machines. The material was mainly French, and the Belgian

pilots used it to good account until German numbers swamped them.

France, and to a small extent England, kept Belgian aviators supplied

with machines throughout the War.

The Italian Air Fleet was small, and consisted of French machines

together with a percentage of planes of Italian origin, of which the

design was very much a copy of French types. It was not until the War

was nearing its end that the military and naval services relied more

on the home product than on imports. This does not apply to engines,

however, for the F.I.A.T. and S.C.A.T. were equal to practically any

engine of Allied make, both in design and construction.

Russia spent vast sums in the provision of machines: the giant Sikorsky

biplane, carrying four 100 horse-power Argus motors, was designed by

a young Russian engineer in the latter part of 1913, and in its early

trials it created a world’s record by carrying seven passengers for

1 hour 54 minutes. Sikorsky also designed several smaller machines,

tractor biplanes on the lines of the British B.E. type, which were

very successful. These were the only home productions, and the imports

consisted mainly of French aeroplanes by the hundred, which got as

far as the docks and railway sidings and stayed there, while German

influence and the corruption that ruined the Russian Army helped to

lose the War. A few Russian aircraft factories were got into operation

as hostilities proceeded, but their products were negligible, and it is

not on record that Russia ever learned to manufacture a magneto.

The United States paid tribute to British efficiency by adopting

the British system of training for its pilots; 500 American cadets

were trained at the School of Military Aeronautics at Oxford, in

order to form a nucleus for the American aviation schools which were

subsequently set up in the United States and in France. As regards

production of craft, the designing of the Liberty engine and building

of over 20,000 aeroplanes within a year proves that America is a

manufacturing country, even under the strain of war.

There were three years of struggle for aerial supremacy, the combatants

being England and France against Germany, and the contest was neck

and neck all the way. Germany led at the outset with the standardised

two-seater biplanes manned by pilots and observers, whose training

was superior to that afforded by any other nation, while the machines

themselves were better equipped and fitted with accessories. All the

early German aeroplanes were designated Taube by the uninitiated,

and were formed with swept-back, curved wings very much resembling

the wings of a bird. These had obvious disadvantages, but the

standardisation of design and mass production of the German factories

kept them in the field for a considerable period, and they flew side by

side with tractor biplanes of improved design. For a little time, the

Fokker monoplane became a definite threat both to French and British

machines. It was an improvement on the Morane French monoplane, and

with a high-powered engine it climbed quickly and flew fast, doing a

good deal of damage for a brief period of 1915. Allied design got ahead

of it and finally drove it out of the air.

[Illustration: A Handley-Page ready to start on a bombing raid,

Dunkirk, 1st June, 1918.]

German equipment at the outset, which put the Allies at a disadvantage,

included a hand-operated magneto engine-starter and a small independent

screw which, mounted on one of the main planes, drove the dynamo used

for the wireless set. Cameras were fitted on practically every machine;

equipment included accurate compasses and pressure petrol gauges,

speed and height recording instruments, bomb-dropping fittings

and sectional radiators which facilitated repairs and gave maximum

engine efficiency in spite of variations of temperature. As counter

to these, the Allied pilots had resource amounting to impudence. In

the early days they carried rifles and hand grenades and automatic

pistols. They loaded their machines down, often at their own expense,

with accessories and fittings until their aeroplanes earned their

title of Christmas trees. They played with death in a way that shocked

the average German pilot of the War’s early stages, declining to

fight according to rule and indulging in the individual duels of the

air which the German hated. As Sir John French put it in one of his

reports, they established a personal ascendancy over the enemy, and in

this way compensated for their inferior material.

French diversity of design fitted in well with the initiative and

resource displayed by the French pilots. The big Caudron type was the

ideal bomber of the early days; Farman machines were excellent for

reconnaissance and artillery spotting; the Bleriots proved excellent

as fighting scouts and for aerial photography; the Nieuports made good

fighters, as did the Spads, both being very fast craft, as were the

Morane-Saulnier monoplanes, while the big Voisin biplanes rivalled the

Caudron machines as bombers.

The day of the Fokker ended when the British B.E.2.C. aeroplane came

to France in good quantities, and the F.E. type, together with the De

Havilland machines, rendered British aerial superiority a certainty.

Germany’s best reply--this was about 1916--was the Albatross biplane,

which was used by Captain Baron von Richthofen for his famous

travelling circus, manned by German star pilots and sent to various

parts of the line to hearten up German troops and aviators after any

specially bad strafe. Then there were the Aviatik biplane and the

Halberstadt fighting scout, a cleanly built and very fast machine with

a powerful engine with which Germany tried to win back superiority in

the third year of the War, but Allied design kept about three months

ahead of that of the enemy, once the Fokker had been mastered, and the

race went on. Spads and Bristol fighters, Sopwith scouts and F.E.’s

played their part in the race, and design was still advancing when

peace came.

The giant twin-engined Handley-Page bomber was tried out, proved

efficient, and justly considered better than anything of its kind that

had previously taken the field. Immediately after the conclusion of its

trials, a specimen of the type was delivered intact at Lille for the

Germans to copy, the innocent pilot responsible for the delivery doing

some great disservice to his own cause. The Gotha Wagon-Fabrik Firm

immediately set to work and copied the Handley-Page design, producing

the great Gotha bombing machine which was used in all the later raids

on England as well as for night work over the Allied lines.

How the War advanced design may be judged by comparison of the military

requirements given for the British Military Trials of 1912, with

performances of 1916 and 1917, when the speed of the faster machines

had increased to over 150 miles an hour and Allied machines engaged

enemy aircraft at heights ranging up to 22,000 feet. All pre-war

records of endurance, speed, and climb went by the board, as the race

for aerial superiority went on.

Bombing brought to being a number of crude devices in the first year

of the War. Allied pilots of the very early days carried up bombs

packed in a small box and threw them over by hand, while, a little

later, the bombs were strung like apples on wings and undercarriage, so

that the pilot who did not get rid of his load before landing risked an

explosion. Then came a properly designed carrying apparatus, crude but

fairly efficient, and with 1916 development had proceeded as far as the

proper bomb-racks with releasing gear.

Reconnaissance work developed, so that fighting machines went as

escort to observing squadrons and scouting operations were undertaken

up to 100 miles behind the enemy lines; out of this grew the art of

camouflage, when ammunition dumps were painted to resemble herds

of cows, guns were screened by foliage or painted to merge into a

ground scheme, and many other schemes were devised to prevent aerial

observation. Troops were moved by night for the most part, owing

to the keen eyes of the air pilots and the danger of bombs, though

occasionally the aviator had his chance. There is one story concerning

a British pilot who, on returning from a reconnaissance flight,

observed a German Staff car on the road under him; he descended and

bombed and machine-gunned the car until the German General and his

chauffeur abandoned it, took to their heels, and ran like rabbits.

Later still, when Allied air superiority was assured, there came

the phase of machine-gunning bodies of enemy troops from the air.

Disregarding all anti-aircraft measures, machines would sweep down and

throw battalions into panic or upset the military traffic along a road,

demoralising a battery or a transport train and causing as much damage

through congestion of traffic as with their actual machine-gun fire.

Aerial photography, too, became a fine art; the ordinary long focus

cameras were used at the outset with automatic plate changers, but

later on photographing aeroplanes had cameras of wide angle lens type

built into the fuselage. These were very simply operated, one lever

registering the exposure and changing the plate. In many cases, aerial

photographs gave information which the human eye had missed, and it is

noteworthy that photographs of ground showed when troops had marched

over it, while the aerial observer was quite unable to detect the marks

left by their passing.

[Illustration: Hoisting out a seaplane from the ‘Ark Royal,’ January,

1916.]

Some small mention must be made of seaplane activities, which, round

the European coasts involved in the War, never ceased. The submarine

campaign found in the spotting seaplane its greatest deterrent, and it

is old news now how even the deeply submerged submarines were easily

picked out for destruction from a height and the news wirelessed from

seaplane to destroyer, while in more than one place the seaplane

itself finished the task by bomb dropping. It was a seaplane that gave

Admiral Beatty the news that the whole German Fleet was out before

the Jutland Battle, news which led to a change of plans that very

nearly brought about the destruction of Germany’s naval power. For the

most part, the seaplanes of the War period were heavier than the land

machines and, in the opinion of the land pilots, were slow and clumsy

things to fly. This was inevitable, for their work demanded more solid

building and greater reliability. To put the matter into Hibernian

phrase, a forced landing at sea is a much more serious matter than on

the ground. Thus there was need for greater engine power, bigger

wing-spread to support the floats, and fuel tanks of greater capacity.

The flying boats of the later War period carried considerable crews,

were heavily armed, capable of withstanding very heavy weather, and

carried good loads of bombs on long cruises. Their work was not all

essentially seaplane work, for the R.N.A.S. was as well known as hated

over the German airship sheds in Belgium and along the Flanders coast.

As regards other theatres of War, they rendered valuable service from

the Dardanelles to the Rufiji River, at this latter place forming a

principal factor in the destruction of the cruiser _Königsberg_. Their

spotting work at the Dardanelles for the battleships was responsible

for direct hits from 15 in. guns on invisible targets at ranges of over

12,000 yards. Seaplane pilots were bombing specialists, including among

their targets army headquarters, ammunition dumps, railway stations,

submarines and their bases, docks, shipping in German harbours, and the

German Fleet at Wilhelmshaven. Dunkirk, a British seaplane base, was a

sharp thorn in the German side.

Turning from consideration of the various services to the exploits of

the men composing them, it is difficult to particularise. A certain

inevitable prejudice even at this length of time leads one to discount

the valour of pilots in the German Air Service, but the names of

Boelcke, von Richthofen, and Immelmann recur as proof of the courage

that was not wanting in the enemy ranks, while, however much we may

decry the Gotha raids over the English coast and on London, there is

no doubt that the men who undertook these raids were not deficient in

the form of bravery that is of more value than the unthinking valour

of a minute which, observed from the right quarter, wins a military

decoration.

Yet the fact that the Allied airmen kept the air at all in the early

days proved on which side personal superiority lay, for they were

outnumbered, out-manœuvred, and faced by better material than any that

they themselves possessed; yet they won their fights or died. The

stories of their deeds are endless; Bishop, flying alone and meeting

seven German machines and crashing four; the battle of May 5th, 1915,

when five heroes fought and conquered twenty-seven German machines,

ranging in altitude, between 12,000 and 3,000 feet, and continuing the

extraordinary struggle from five until six in the evening. Captain

Aizlewood, attacking five enemy machines with such reckless speed that

he rammed one and still reached his aerodrome safely--these are items

in a long list of feats of which the character can only be realised

when it is fully comprehended that the British Air Service accounted

for some 8,000 enemy machines in the course of the War. Among the

French there was Captain Guynemer, who at the time of his death had

brought down fifty-four enemy machines, in addition to many others of

which the destruction could not be officially confirmed. There was

Fonck, who brought down six machines in one day, four of them within

two minutes.

There are incredible stories, true as incredible, of shattered men

carrying on with their work in absolute disregard of physical injury.

Major Brabazon Rees, V.C., engaged a big German battleplane in

September of 1915 and, single-handed, forced his enemy out of action.

Later in his career, with a serious wound in the thigh from which

blood was pouring, he kept up a fight with an enemy formation until he

had not a round of ammunition left, and then returned to his aerodrome

to get his wound dressed. Lieutenants Otley and Dunning, flying in

the Balkans, engaged a couple of enemy machines and drove them off,

but not until their petrol tank had got a hole in it and Dunning was

dangerously wounded in the leg. Otley improvised a tourniquet, passed

it to Dunning, and, when the latter had bandaged himself, changed from

the observer’s to the pilot’s seat, plugged the bullet hole in the tank

with his thumb and steered the machine home.

These are incidents; the full list has not been, and can never be

recorded, but it goes to show that in the pilot of the War period there

came to being a new type of humanity, a product of evolution which

fitted a certain need. Of such was Captain West, who, engaging hostile

troops, was attacked by seven machines. Early in the engagement,

one of his legs was partially severed by an explosive bullet and

fell powerless into the controls, rendering the machine for the time

unmanageable. Lifting his disabled leg, he regained control of the

machine, and although wounded in the other leg, he manœuvred his

machine so skilfully that his observer was able to get several good

bursts into the enemy machines, driving them away. Then, desperately

wounded as he was, Captain West brought the machine over to his own

lines and landed safely. He fainted from loss of blood and exhaustion,

but on regaining consciousness, insisted on writing his report. Equal

to this was the exploit of Captain Barker, who, in aerial combat, was

wounded in the right and left thigh and had his left arm shattered,

subsequently bringing down an enemy machine in flames, and then

breaking through another hostile formation and reaching the British

lines.

In recalling such exploits as these, one is tempted on and on, for it

seems that the pilots rivalled each other in their devotion to duty,

this not confined to British aviators, but common practically to all

services. Sufficient instances have been given to show the nature of

the work and the character of the men who did it.

The rapid growth of aerial effort rendered it necessary in January of

1915 to organise the Royal Flying Corps into separate wings, and in

October of the same year it was constituted in Brigades. In 1916 the

Air Board was formed, mainly with the object of co-ordinating effort

and ensuring both to the R.N.A.S. and to the R.F.C. adequate supplies

of material as far as construction admitted. Under the presidency

of Lord Cowdray, the Air Board brought about certain reforms early

in 1917, and in November of that year a separate Air Ministry was

constituted, separating the Air Force from both Navy and Army, and

rendering it an independent force. On April 1st, 1918, the Royal Air

Force came into existence, and unkind critics in the Royal Flying

Corps remarked on the appropriateness of the date. At the end of the

War, the personnel of the Royal Air Force amounted to 27,906 officers,

and 263,842 other ranks. Contrast of these figures with the number

of officers and men who took the field in 1914 is indicative of the

magnitude of British aerial effort in the War period.

[Illustration: The Seaplane Carrier ‘Empress’ from the stern, showing

interior of hangar.]

XX

THE WAR PERIOD--II

There was when War broke out no realisation on the part of the British

Government of the need for encouraging the enterprise of private

builders, who carried out their work entirely at their own cost. The

importance of a supply of British-built engines was realised before

the War, it is true, and a competition was held in which a prize of

£5,000 was offered for the best British engine, but this awakening

was so late that the R.F.C. took the field without a single British

power plant. Although Germany woke up equally late to the need for

home produced aeroplane engines, the experience gained in building

engines for dirigibles sufficed for the production of aeroplane power

plants. The Mercedes filled all requirements together with the Benz and

the Maybach. There was a 225 horse-power Benz which was very popular,

as were the 100 horse-power and 170 horse-power Mercedes, the last

mentioned fitted to the Aviatik biplane of 1917. The Uberursel was a

copy of the Gnome and supplied the need for rotary engines.

In Great Britain there were a number of aeroplane constructing

firms that had managed to emerge from the lean years 1912–1913 with

sufficient manufacturing plant to give a hand in making up the

leeway of construction when War broke out. Gradually the motor-car

firms came in, turning their body-building departments to plane and

fuselage construction, which enabled them to turn out the complete

planes engined and ready for the field. The coach-building trade soon

joined in and came in handy as propeller makers; big upholstering

and furniture firms and scores of concerns that had never dreamed of

engaging in aeroplane construction were busy on supplying the R.F.C. By

1915 hundreds of different firms were building aeroplanes and parts;

by 1917 the number had increased to over 1,000, and a capital of over

a million pounds for a firm that at the outbreak of War had employed

a score or so of hands was by no means uncommon. Women and girls came

into the work, more especially in plane construction and covering and

doping, though they took their place in the engine shops and proved

successful at acetylene welding and work at the lathes. It was some

time before Britain was able to provide its own magnetos, for this key

industry had been left in the hands of the Germans up to the outbreak

of War, and the ‘Bosch’ was admittedly supreme--even now it has never

been beaten, and can only be equalled, being as near perfection as is

possible for a magneto.

One of the great inventions of the War was the synchronisation of

engine-timing and machine-gun, which rendered it possible to fire

through the blades of a propeller without damaging them, though the

growing efficiency of the aeroplane as a whole and of its armament

is a thing to marvel at on looking back and considering what was

actually accomplished. As the efficiency of the aeroplane increased,

so anti-aircraft guns and range-finding were improved. Before the War

an aeroplane travelling at full speed was reckoned perfectly safe at

4,000 feet, but, by the first month of 1915, the safe height had gone

up to 9,000 feet, 7,000 feet being the limit of rifle and machine gun

bullet trajectory; the heavier guns were not sufficiently mobile to

tackle aircraft. At that time, it was reckoned that effective aerial

photography ceased at 6,000 feet, while bomb-dropping from 7,000–8,000

feet was reckoned uncertain except in the case of a very large target.

The improvement in anti-aircraft devices went on, and by May of 1916,

an aeroplane was not safe under 15,000 feet, while anti-aircraft shells

had fuses capable of being set to over 20,000 feet, and bombing from

15,000 and 16,000 feet was common. It was not till later that Allied

pilots demonstrated the safety that lies in flying very near the

ground, this owing to the fact that, when flying swiftly at a very low

altitude, the machine is out of sight almost before it can be aimed at.

The Battle of the Somme and the clearing of the air preliminary to that

operation brought the fighting aeroplane pure and simple with them.

Formations of fighting planes preceded reconnaissance craft in order

to clear German machines and observation balloons out of the sky and

to watch and keep down any further enemy formations that might attempt

to interfere with Allied observation work. The German reply to this

consisted in the formation of the Flying Circus, of which Captain Baron

von Richthofen’s was a good example. Each circus consisted of a large

formation of speedy machines, built specially for fighting and manned

by the best of the German pilots. These were sent to attack at any

point along the line where the Allies had got a decided superiority.

The trick flying of pre-war days soon became an everyday matter;

Pegoud astonished the aviation world before the War by first looping

the loop, but, before three years of hostilities had elapsed, looping

was part of the training of practically every pilot, while the spinning

nose dive, originally considered fatal, was mastered, and the tail

slide, which consisted of a machine rising nose upward in the air and

falling back on its tail, became one of the easiest ‘stunts’ in the

pilot’s repertoire. Inherent stability was gradually improved, and,

from 1916 onward, practically every pilot could carry on with his

machine-gun or camera and trust to his machine to fly itself until he

was free to attend to it. There was more than one story of a machine

coming safely to earth and making good landing on its own account with

the pilot dead in his cock-pit.

Toward the end of the War, the Independent Air Force was formed as a

branch of the R.A.F. with a view to bombing German bases and devoting

its attention exclusively to work behind the enemy lines. Bombing

operations were undertaken by the R.N.A.S. as early as 1914–1915

against Cuxhaven, Dusseldorf, and Friedrichshavn, but the supply

of material was not sufficient to render these raids continuous. A

separate Brigade, the 8th, was formed in 1917 to harass the German

chemical and iron industries, the base being in the Nancy area, and

this policy was found so fruitful that the Independent Force was

constituted on the 8th June, 1918. The value of the work accomplished

by this force is demonstrated by the fact that the German High Command

recalled twenty fighting squadrons from the Western front to counter

its activities, and, in addition, took troops away from the fighting

line in large numbers for manning anti-aircraft batteries and

searchlights. The German press of the last year of the War is eloquent

of the damage done in manufacturing areas by the Independent Force,

which, had hostilities continued a little longer, would have included

Berlin in its activities.

Formation flying was first developed by the Germans, who made use of it

in the daylight raids against England in 1917. Its value was very soon

realised, and the V formation of wild geese was adopted, the leader

taking the point of the V and his squadron following on either side

at different heights. The air currents set up by the leading machines

were thus avoided by those in the rear, while each pilot had a good

view of the leader’s bombs, and were able to correct their own aim by

the bursts, while the different heights at which they flew rendered

anti-aircraft gun practice less effective. Further, machines were able

to afford mutual protection to each other and any attacker would be

met by machine-gun fire from three or four machines firing on him from

different angles and heights. In the later formations single-seater

fighters flew above the bombers for the purpose of driving off hostile

craft. Formation flying was not fully developed when the end of the War

brought stagnation in place of the rapid advance in the strategy and

tactics of military air work.

XXI

RECONSTRUCTION

The end of the War brought a pause in which the multitude of aircraft

constructors found themselves faced with the possible complete

stagnation of the industry, since military activities no longer

demanded their services and the prospects of commercial flying were

virtually nil. That great factor in commercial success, cost of plant

and upkeep, had received no consideration whatever in the War period,

for armies do not count cost. The types of machines that had evolved

from the War were very fast, very efficient, and very expensive,

although the bombers showed promise of adaptation to commercial needs,

and, so far as other machines were concerned, America had already

proved the possibilities of mail-carrying by maintaining a mail service

even during the War period.

A civil aviation department of the Air Ministry was formed in February

of 1919 with a Controller General of Civil Aviation at the head.

This was organised into four branches, one dealing with the survey

and preparation of air routes for the British Empire, one organising

meteorological and wireless telegraphy services, one dealing with the

licensing of aerodromes, machines for passenger or goods carrying

and civilian pilots, and one dealing with publicity and transmission

of information generally. A special Act of Parliament entitled ‘The

Air Navigation Acts, 1911–1919,’ was passed on February 27th, and

commercial flying was officially permitted from May 1st, 1919.

Meanwhile the great event of 1919, the crossing of the Atlantic by

air, was gradually ripening to performance. In addition to the rigid

airship, R.34, eight machines entered for this flight, these being a

Short seaplane, Handley-Page, Martinsyde, Vickers-Vimy, and Sopwith

aeroplanes, and three American flying boats, N.C.1, N.C.3, and N.C.4.

The Short seaplane was the only one of the eight which proposed to

make the journey westward; in flying from England to Ireland, before

starting on the long trip to Newfoundland, it fell into the sea off

the coast of Anglesey, and so far as it was concerned the attempt was

abandoned.

The first machines to start from the Western end were the three

American seaplanes, which on the morning of May 6th left Trepassy,

Newfoundland, on the 1,380 mile stage to Horta in the Azores. N.C.1

and N.C.3 gave up the attempt very early, but N.C.4, piloted by

Lieut.-Commander Read, U.S.N., made Horta on May 17th and made a three

days’ halt. On the 20th, the second stage of the journey to Ponta

Delgada, a further 190 miles, was completed and a second halt of a week

was made. On the 27th, the machine left for Lisbon, 900 miles distant,

and completed the journey in a day. On the 30th a further stage of 340

miles took N.C.4 on to Ferrol, and the next day the last stage of 420

miles to Plymouth was accomplished.

Meanwhile, H. G. Hawker, pilot of the Sopwith biplane, together with

Commander Mackenzie Grieve, R.N., his navigator, found the weather

sufficiently auspicious to set out at 6.48 p.m. on Sunday, May 18th,

in the hope of completing the trip by the direct route before N.C.4

could reach Plymouth. They set out from Mount Pearl aerodrome, St

John’s, Newfoundland, and vanished into space, being given up as lost,

as Hamel was lost immediately before the War in attempting to fly the

North Sea. There was a week of dead silence regarding their fate, but

on the following Sunday morning there was world-wide relief at the news

that the plucky attempt had not ended in disaster, but both aviators

had been picked up by the steamer _Mary_ at 9.30 a.m. on the morning of

the 19th, while still about 750 miles short of the conclusion of their

journey. Engine failure brought them down, and they planed down to the

sea close to the _Mary_ to be picked up; as the vessel was not fitted

with wireless, the news of their rescue could not be communicated until

land was reached. An equivalent of half the £10,000 prize offered by

the _Daily Mail_ for the non-stop flight was presented by the paper in

recognition of the very gallant attempt, and the King conferred the Air

Force Cross on both pilot and navigator.

Raynham, pilot of the Martinsyde competing machine, had the bad luck to

crash his craft twice in attempting to start before he got outside the

boundary of the aerodrome. The Handley-Page machine was withdrawn from

the competition, and, attempting to fly to America, was crashed on the

way.

[Illustration: The Atlantic Flight.

Front view of the Vickers-Vimy machine standing on its nose in the bog

at Clifden, Co. Galway.]

The first non-stop crossing was made on June 14th-15th in 16 hours 27

minutes, the speed being just over 117 miles per hour. The machine

was a Vickers-Vimy bomber, engined with two Rolls-Royce Eagle

VIII’s, piloted by Captain John Alcock, D.S.C., with Lieut. Arthur

Whitten-Brown as navigator. The journey was reported to be very

rough, so much so at times that Captain Alcock stated that they were

flying upside down, and for the greater part of the time they were

out of sight of the sea. Both pilot and navigator had the honour of

knighthood conferred on them at the conclusion of the journey.

Meanwhile, commercial flying opened on May 8th (the official date

was May 1st) with a joy-ride service from Hounslow of Avro training

machines. The enterprise caught on remarkably, and the company extended

their activities to coastal resorts for the holiday season--at

Blackpool alone they took up 10,000 passengers before the service was

two months old. Hendon, beginning passenger flights on the same date,

went in for exhibition and passenger flying, and on June 21st the

aerial Derby was won by Captain Gathergood on an Airco 4R machine with

a Napier 450 horse-power ‘Lion’ engine; incidentally the speed of 129.3

miles per hour was officially recognised as constituting the world’s

record for speed within a closed circuit. On July 17th a Fiat B.R.

biplane with a 700 horse-power engine landed at Kenley aerodrome after

having made a non-stop flight of 1,100 miles. The maximum speed of this

machine was 160 miles per hour, and it was claimed to be the fastest

machine in existence. On August 25th a daily service between London and

Paris was inaugurated by the Aircraft Manufacturing Company, Limited,

who ran a machine each way each day, starting at 12.30 and due to

arrive at 2.45 p.m. The Handley-Page Company began a similar service in

September of 1919, but ran it on alternate days with machines capable

of accommodating ten passengers. The single fare in each case was

fixed at 15 guineas and the parcel rate at 7s. 6d. per pound.

Meanwhile, in Germany, a number of passenger services had been in

operation from the early part of the year; the Berlin-Weimar service

was established on February 5th and Berlin-Hamburg on March 1st, both

for mail and passenger carrying. Berlin-Breslau was soon added, but

the first route opened remained most popular, 538 flights being made

between its opening and the end of April, while for March and April

combined, the Hamburg-Berlin route recorded only 262 flights. All three

routes were operated by a combine of German aeronautical firms entitled

the Deutsche Luft Rederie. The single fare between Hamburg and Berlin

was 450 marks, between Berlin and Breslau 500 marks, and between Berlin

and Weimar 450 marks. Luggage was carried free of charge, but varied

according to the weight of the passenger, since the combined weight of

both passenger and luggage was not allowed to exceed a certain limit.

In America commercial flying had begun in May of 1918 with the mail

service between Washington, Philadelphia, and New York, which proved

that mail carrying is a commercial possibility, and also demonstrated

the remarkable reliability of the modern aeroplane by making 102

complete flights out of a possible total of 104 in November, 1918, at

a cost of 0.777 of a dollar per mile. By March of 1919 the cost per

mile had gone up to 1.28 dollars; the first annual report issued at

the end of May showed an efficiency of 95.6 per cent and the original

six aeroplanes and engines with which the service began were still in

regular use.

[Illustration: The N.C. 4 and N.C. 1 lying ready to start on the

Atlantic Flight.]

In June of 1919 an American commercial firm chartered an aeroplane

for emergency service owing to a New York harbour strike and found it

so useful that they made it a regular service. The Travellers Company

inaugurated a passenger flying boat service between New York and

Atlantic City on July 25th, the fare, inclusive of 35 lbs. of luggage,

being fixed at £25 each way.

Five flights on the American continent up to the end of 1919 are worthy

of note. On December 13th, 1918, Lieut. D. Godoy of the Chilian army

left Santiago, Chili, crossed the Andes at a height of 19,700 feet

and landed at Mendoza, the capital of the wine-growing province of

Argentina. On April 19th, 1919, Captain E. F. White made the first

non-stop flight between New York and Chicago in 6 hours 50 minutes on

a D.H.4 machine driven by a twelve-cylinder Liberty engine. Early in

August Major Schroeder, piloting a French Lepere machine flying at a

height of 18,400 feet, reached a speed of 137 miles per hour with a

Liberty motor fitted with a super-charger. Toward the end of August,

Rex Marshall, on a Thomas-Morse biplane, starting from a height

of 17,000 feet, made a glide of 35 miles with his engine cut off,

restarting it when at a height of 600 feet above the ground. About a

month later R. Rohlfe, piloting a Curtiss triplane, broke the height

record by reaching 34,610 feet.

XXII

1919–20

Into the later months of 1919 comes the flight by Captain Ross-Smith

from England to Australia and the attempt to make the Cape to Cairo

voyage by air. The Australian Government had offered a prize of £10,000

for the first flight from England to Australia in a British machine,

the flight to be accomplished in 720 consecutive hours. Ross-Smith,

with his brother, Lieut. Keith Macpherson Smith, and two mechanics,

left Hounslow in a Vickers-Vimy bomber with Rolls-Royce engine on

November 12th and arrived at Port Darwin, North Australia, on the 10th

December, having completed the flight in 27 days 20 hours 20 minutes,

thus having 51 hours 40 minutes to spare out of the 720 allotted hours.

[Illustration: Australian Flight finish, 10th December, 1919.

The crew and machine.]

[Illustration: Cape to Cairo.

The ‘Silver Queen’ and its crew.]

Early in 1920 came a series of attempts at completing the journey by

air between Cairo and the Cape. Out of four competitors Colonel Van

Ryneveld came nearest to making the journey successfully, leaving

England on a standard Vickers-Vimy bomber with Rolls-Royce engines,

identical in design with the machine used by Captain Ross-Smith on the

England to Australia flight. A second Vickers-Vimy was financed by the

_Times_ newspaper and a third flight was undertaken with a Handley-Page

machine under the auspices of the _Daily Telegraph_. The Air Ministry

had already prepared the route by means of three survey parties which

cleared the aerodromes and landing grounds, dividing their journey

into stages of 200 miles or less. Not one of the competitors completed

the course, but in both this and Ross-Smith’s flight valuable data was

gained in respect of reliability of machines and engines, together with

a mass of meteorological information.

The Handley-Page Company announced in the early months of 1920 that

they had perfected a new design of wing which brought about a twenty to

forty per cent improvement in lift rate in the year. When the nature

of the design was made public, it was seen to consist of a division

of the wing into small sections, each with its separate lift. A few

days later, Fokker, the Dutch inventor, announced the construction

of a machine in which all external bracing wires are obviated, the

wings being of a very deep section and self-supporting. The value of

these two inventions remains to be seen so far as commercial flying is

concerned.

The value of air work in war, especially so far as the Colonial

campaigns in which British troops are constantly being engaged is in

question, was very thoroughly demonstrated in a report issued early in

1920 with reference to the successful termination of the Somaliland

campaign through the intervention of the Royal Air Force, which between

January 21st and the 31st practically destroyed the Dervish force under

the Mullah, which had been a thorn in the side of Britain since 1907.

Bombs and machine-guns did the work, destroying fortifications and

bringing about the surrender of all the Mullah’s following, with the

exception of about seventy who made their escape.

Certain records both in construction and performance had characterised

the post-war years, though as design advances and comes nearer to

perfection, it is obvious that records must get fewer and farther

between. The record aeroplane as regards size at the time of its

construction was the Tarrant triplane, which made its first--and

last--flight on May 28th, 1919. The total loaded weight was 30 tons,

and the machine was fitted with six 400 horse-power engines; almost

immediately after the trial flight began, the machine pitched forward

on its nose and was wrecked, causing fatal injuries to Captains Dunn

and Rawlings, who were aboard the machine. A second accident of similar

character was that which befell the giant seaplane known as the

Felixstowe Fury, in a trial flight. This latter machine was intended to

be flown to Australia, but was crashed over the water.

On May 4th, 1920, a British record for flight duration and useful load

was established by a commercial type Handley-Page biplane, which,

carrying a load of 3,690 lbs., rose to a height of 13,999 feet and

remained in the air for 1 hour 20 minutes. On May 27th the French

pilot, Fronval, flying at Villacoublay in a Morane-Saulnier type of

biplane with Le Rhone motor, put up an extraordinary type of record by

looping the loop 962 times in 3 hours 52 minutes 10 seconds. Another

record of the year of similar nature was that of two French fliers,

Boussotrot and Bernard, who achieved a continuous flight of 24 hours 19

minutes 7 seconds, beating the pre-war record of 21 hours 48¾ seconds

set up by the German pilot, Landemann. Both these records are likely to

stand, being in the nature of freaks, which demonstrate little beyond

the reliability of the machine and the capacity for endurance on the

part of its pilots.

[Illustration: Trial Flight of the Tarrant Triplane at Farnborough.

The machine before the crash.]

Meanwhile, on February 14th, Lieuts. Masiero and Ferrarin left Rome

on S.V.A. Ansaldo V. machines fitted with 220 horse-power S.V.A.

motors. On May 30th they arrived at Tokio, having flown by way of

Bagdad, Karachi, Canton, Pekin, and Osaka. Several other competitors

started, two of whom were shot down by Arabs in Mesopotamia.

Considered in a general way, the first two years after the termination

of the Great European War form a period of transition in which the

commercial type of aeroplane was gradually evolved from the fighting

machine which was perfected in the four preceding years. There was

about this period no sense of finality, but it was as experimental, in

its own way, as were the years of progressing design which preceded

the war period. Such commercial schemes as were inaugurated call for

no more note than has been given here; they have been experimental,

and, with the possible exception of the United States Government mail

service, have not been planned and executed on a sufficiently large

scale to furnish reliable data on which to forecast the prospects of

commercial aviation. And there is a school rapidly growing up which

asserts that the day of aeroplanes is nearly over. The construction of

the giant airships of to-day and the successful return flight of R34

across the Atlantic seem to point to the eventual triumph, in spite of

its disadvantages, of the dirigible airship.

This is a hard saying for such of the aeroplane industry as survived

the War period and consolidated itself, and it is but the saying of

a section which bases its belief on the fact that, as was noted in

the very early years of the century, the aeroplane is primarily a

war machine. Moreover, the experience of the War period tended to

discredit the dirigible, since, before the introduction of helium gas,

the inflammability of its buoyant factor placed it at an immense

disadvantage beside the machine dependent on the atmosphere itself for

its lift.

As life runs to-day, it is a long time since Kipling wrote his story

of the airways of a future world and thrust out a prophecy that the

bulk of the world’s air traffic would be carried by gas-bag vessels. If

the school which inclines to belief in the dirigible is right in its

belief, as it well may be, then the foresight was uncannily correct,

not only in the matter of the main assumption, but in the detail with

which the writer embroidered it.

On the constructional side, the history of the aeroplane is still so

much in the making that any attempt at a critical history would be

unwise, and it is possible only to record fact, leaving it to the

future for judgment to be passed. But, in a general way, criticism

may be advanced with regard to the place that aeronautics takes

in civilisation. In the past hundred years, the world has made

miraculously rapid strides materially, but moral development has not

kept abreast. Conception of the responsibilities of humanity remains

virtually in a position of a hundred years ago; given a higher

conception of life and its responsibilities, the aeroplane becomes the

crowning achievement of that long series which James Watt inaugurated,

the last step in inter-communication, the chain with which all nations

are bound in a growing prosperity, surely based on moral wellbeing.

Without such conception of the duties as well as the rights of life,

this last achievement of science may yet prove the weapon that shall

end civilisation as men know it to-day, and bring this ultra-material

age to a phase of ruin on which saner people can build a world more

reasonable and less given to groping after purely material advancement.

[Illustration: The Tarrant smash.

Front view of crashed machine. Searching for the injured after the

smash.]