CHAPTER IV

. The Beginnings of the Air Force. pp. 146-97

English respect for precedent. The air force developed by stages from a balloon detachment of the Royal Engineers. The balloon in war. Balloon experiments at Woolwich and Chatham. Balloons in Bechuanaland, 1884; in the Soudan, 1885. Success of balloons at Aldershot manoeuvres, 1889. Balloon Factory established at South Farnborough, 1894. Balloons in South African War, 1899-1900. Energy of the factory. Colonel Templer and Colonel Capper. The first British army airship, the _Nulli Secundus_, 1907. Appointment of Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, 1909, to combine theory and practice. The National Physical Laboratory. Growth of the factory under Mr. Mervyn O'Gorman, 1909-16. Its services to aviation. Private makers of aircraft stand aloof. The designing office at the factory. Its services during the war. Famous factory types of aeroplane--the B.E., the F.E., the S.E., the R.E. The question of stability; work of Mr. Lanchester and Professor Bryan. The story of Mr. Busk. Workmanship and safety. Notable devices invented at the factory.

The navy employs private firms of aircraft makers. The Short brothers. Factory airships from 1908 to 1913. All airships assigned to the navy in 1913. The _Mayfly_ fiasco, 1908-11. Captain Murray Sueter and Captain Bertram Dickson on the command of the air. The true doctrine--freedom and the open highways.

French military aviation in 1911. Reports of Lieutenant Glyn and Captain Sykes. German aeronautics in 1912. Report of Captain Sueter and Mr. O'Gorman. Changed conditions of naval warfare. British naval airship section reconstituted. Purchase of foreign airships. British rigid airships ordered in 1913, too late for the war. German belief in the airship. Private efforts of British naval officers. Commander Oliver Swann first gets off the water in an Avro aeroplane fitted with floats, 1911. Lieutenant C. R. Samson flies off the deck of H.M.S. _Africa_, 1911. Lieutenant Samson's first seaplane. The first flying boat.

The problem of the making of an air force. The need of discipline. Early doings of the Air Battalion, 1911. Difficulties of policy. Lighter than air and heavier than air. Aeroplanes few; airships unpopular. Royal Engineers and others. Mr. Cockburn teaches the battalion to fly. They fly from Larkhill to Farnborough. Cross-country flights. Army manoeuvres of 1911; adventurers of the Air Battalion. The accident to Lieutenant Reynolds. Record flight of Lieutenant Barrington-Kennett. Death of Lieutenant Cammell. Our apprenticeship in the air. The English fashion.

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