In writing of modern aviation it is to be regretted that the sport or science, call it what you will, was developed more in two years by the war than would have been possible in twenty-two years under normal conditions. Prior to 1914 we did not look upon aircraft and aviation with the degree of interest that their useful qualities warranted. Instead we were apt to regard them rather in the manner of a sporting spectacle, in much the same light as a football match, or a boxing entertainment, or as the pièce de résistance of the showmen; thus aircraft, the greatest and most potential discovery of all the ages, had to prove their worth in the maiming of humanity and the destruction of property.
Quietly and unobtrusively they were introduced into the plans of war; it must be admitted greatly despised and with a strong feeling of repugnance. Gradually—so gradually as almost to be unnoticed—they began to prove their worth.
From the very first days of the war it began to be realized that we must have aircraft. Our large Navy was in desperate need of seaplanes to hunt the enemy warships from their lairs and his merchantmen from the seas. In the same way our tiny Army required aeroplanes, but for a somewhat different reason: to be prepared against all enemy surprises, which in those desperate days of early 1914 would have been fatal.
As the war developed, the various belligerents began to settle down, to restore order from the chaos, and to prepare for a long and arduous campaign. Then the cry came for aircraft, more and more aircraft. In England the great engineering shops and factories were peremptorily ordered by the Government to abandon their work and to construct aeroplanes as fast as they were able. Meanwhile the enemy, who had long been prepared, began to obtain an overwhelming mastery of the air—it will always remain a mystery why he did not use his aircraft to better effect at Mons and the Marne. After four and six months, fresh craft came out from England, and it was then the enemy, in his turn, was driven from the air. For some time we were allowed to retain that mastery, then the enemy came along with a rush with the new and powerful Albatross and Aviatik, and again we retired into the background for a time. Meanwhile, aeroplane factories were springing up all over the country, and the production of machines was going up by leaps and bounds;—undeniable proof this of the value such craft were to the military commanders. Thus the mad race went on. Fast, graceful, single-seater scouts, slower and larger reconnaissance craft; huge, powerful-engined battle-planes made their appearance in quantities hitherto undreamt of, and were dispatched in never-ending stream across the Channel, there to play their part in the war.
Dipping into the past, it may be said that by 1784 flight by balloon was well under way, and that year a woman—Madame Thible—made a trip in the presence of King Gustavus III of Sweden, that lasted three-quarters of an hour. She reached an altitude of 9000 feet. The following year the first cross-channel trip was made by Blanchard, with an American doctor named Jefferies for passenger, together with a supply of provisions and ballast. This weighed the balloon down to so great an extent that she almost sank into the sea a few moments after starting. Ballast was thrown overboard and she rose, only to sink down again. Hurriedly more ballast was dropped, but it had no effect, and was followed by everything on which the aeronauts could lay their hands, including provisions, books and a mass of correspondence. At last the French coast loomed into view, but the balloon was now sinking rapidly. The wings were thrown overboard, but that had no effect. The aeronauts commenced to strip themselves of their clothing. Then Jefferies proposed to jump over the side into the water, and was about to do so, when the balloon rose suddenly into the air, and they landed on the hills behind Calais.
Aircraft played a great part in the Franco-Prussian war, and during the siege of Paris alone as many as 66 balloons left the stricken city, carrying 60 pilots, 102 passengers, 409 carrier pigeons, 9 tons of letters and telegrams, and 6 dogs. Five of the dogs were sent back to Paris, but were lost and never heard of again, while 57 of the carrier pigeons carried 100,000 messages. Of the 66 balloons 58 got through, 5 fell into German hands, and 2 into the sea.
Among the more historical trips is that of Gaston Tissandier, who went over the German lines, and dropped 10,000 copies of a proclamation addressed to the soldiers, asking for peace, yet declaring that France would fight to the bitter end.
In South Africa an observation balloon was in use at Ladysmith for twenty-nine days, doing extremely useful work in spotting the Boer artillery. The pilot of an observation balloon reported the enemy’s position on Spionkop to be impregnable, and, at Paardeberg, another disclosed the precise position of Cronje’s force and directed our artillery fire thereon.
Of all the Great Powers, Italy is more responsible, perhaps, than any other for the evolution of aircraft. From the sixteenth century the most accomplished Italian scientists have given their attention to the solving of the riddle of the air. Such names as Leonardo da Vinci and Fausto Varanzio stand out prominently in the history of aviation; and to-day the Italian rigid airships are the best in the world. It was, however, mainly due to the efforts of two Frenchmen that prominence was first given to aircraft. Joseph and Stephen Montgolfier were the sons of a rich paper-maker of Annoney, and the story goes that, while rowing, Stephen’s silk coat fell overboard into the water. When drying the coat it was noticed that the hot air tended to make it rise, and the upshot of the affair was the Montgolfier balloon. Since those days France has devoted herself almost entirely to the development of aeroplanes, which are second only to those of German manufacture. To the latter power honor, however unwilling, must be given as regards aircraft. On the outbreak of war her aeroplanes were the finest in the world, and her Zeppelins were beyond comparison. Great Britain possessed an advantageous lead in the matter of aeroplanes.
The development of aviation in this country was mainly due to the untiring efforts of the Royal Aero Club affiliated to the Fédération Aéronique International; and the splendid encouragement of the proprietors of the Daily Mail, who generously put aside an aggregate sum of £37,000 towards prize-money for aeronautical events. The Fédération Aéronique had already branches in America, Argentine, Austria, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland. In England the R.A.C. controlled every matter connected with aviation, such as the arranging and governing of competitions, the granting of pilots’ certificates, and the ruling of the air. Up to August, 1914, they had already granted 926 certificates, of which 863 were aeroplane, 24 airship and 39 aeronaut (balloon). The first of their competitions for the Britannia Challenge Trophy was carried off by Captain C. A. N. Longcroft, R.F.C., in 1913 with a flight from Montrose to Farnborough via Portsmouth, a distance in a direct line of 445 miles. It was the R.A.C. that arranged the Daily Mail competitions, several of which have yet to be carried out, including the £10,000 Cross-Atlantic (by aeroplane). The Daily Mail International Cross-country flight for £1,000 was won by Louis Blériot, July 25, 1909: it is needless to remark that this flight has now become an everyday occurrence. The £10,000 London to Manchester flight was awarded to Louis Paulhan (France). The second £10,000 circuit of Britain of 1010 miles was carried off by André Beaumont; and J. T. C. Brabazon was successful in the National Daily Mail £1000 for a flight of one mile in an All British machine.
The highest altitude that had been reached in Great Britain was 14,920 feet; the greatest distance flown 287 miles; and the longest duration 8 hours 23 minutes.
Whether we were prepared for the war is a matter for too extensive a discussion for this little book, but the fact remains that the number of firms engaged in the manufacturing of aeroplanes could be counted on both hands, and that we were without a useful and reliable engine of British construction.
The Air Service is young, very young; it is like an overgrown schoolboy, strong, healthy and full of life, but lacking just that sense of proportion that distinguishes the schoolboy from the man. It is wise, for it is endowed with the wisdom of initiative, courage and resource. Turned loose into an entirely novel and little understood element, it has had to create its own methods of procedure, its own ideals, its own traditions. Reference to the policies and the formulas of past generations are impossible, for there are none!
The main principles of aerial warfare are entirely new; in every combat, and in every raid, some precedent is established, some new form or theory of attack is set up. To the airman every day is alike. In times of peace he risks his neck as much as he does in time of war, save that engaged in the latter he has the additional unpleasantness of shell fire. He willingly gives all, but asks for nothing. He is the knight-errant of the twentieth century.
In days of the past, it was the cavalryman, wounded and galloping across country, with a hundred foemen hard at his heels, who first brought news of the enemy to the general in command. His was a pleasant occupation, that smacked largely of daring and romance. He stood an excellent chance of getting a bullet through his lungs, or of being clapped into an enemy prison. To-day there comes flying across the heavens a resolute young hero, in a few feet of wood and fabric, throwing defiance to shot and shell alike, suspended thousands of feet up between heaven and earth, peering from that swaying aeroplane at the panorama of the earth beneath.
This is the age of science and invention. War on and over the earth, on and under the sea. For many years we have steadily been putting behind us the barbarities of our forbears, we have become more civilized, and, though more civilized, more barbarous. This is no paradox; science has made great and wonderful strides, but science has been more devilishly ingenious than any torture of Spanish Inquisition days.
The airmen who pilot their frail craft over hill and valley, sea and land, across cloud and through fog and mist, are the privateers of modern times; but for them there can be no capture, no quarter: only victory or a thousand feet drop to the cruel earth below. Through their young veins must flow the blood of a Drake, of a Philip Sidney, of a Nelson. Theirs must be the courage of a conqueror, the heart of a lion, the nerve of a colossus.
No bounded ocean is their sea, but the infinity of space. The ship’s compass is their best friend; for they maneuver their craft like a ship at sea. Wind and weather affect them as they would a mariner. For rock, shoal, sandbank and channel there are the high hills, the tall factory stack, the church steeple, and the deep valley. Landmarks there are, but always below, not on either side. Railways, roads, rivers, fields, woods and hills form the color scheme of the surface of the earth, by which the air pilot steers a course.
This, the youngest and most important Service, is essentially one for the young man and of the young man: a Service the future of which is being steadily built up by the “muddied oafs and flanneled fools” of the playing-fields of the public schools of Great Britain.
Immediately after leaving school is the most perplexing period in a boy’s life. Not only for the boy himself, but for his parents, for then has to be considered his future career. What is the boy capable of? What are his own personal wishes? What profession is he best adapted for physically? It is indeed a momentous question.
It is worse than useless for the boy fond of good, wholesome, out-of-door exercises and games to be put into an office or to study for the Bar, or to mope his young life away pen-driving. And, on the other hand, it is a positive torture for the youth with distinct literary taste, or love of things scholastic, to take up a Commission in one of the Services, or to go in for farming or a similar profession.
Taking everything into consideration, at least eighty per cent. of boys may be grouped into the former class—that is to say, they wish to adopt a healthy, open-air profession; and for this type of youth nothing can be better, and nothing can offer greater inducements, than the profession of the airman. It is a calling that appeals irresistibly to a boy’s heart.
The best possible training for the pilot of the air are outdoor sports and games. Football, which teaches the boy to keep his head in all emergencies, to keep his feelings always well under control, and to learn to obey implicitly the discipline of the referee’s whistle will prove invaluable to him when learning to fly, when he will be subject to every kind and manner of unexpected and sudden mishap and accident.
Cricket will teach him patience, judgment—so invaluable when landing an aeroplane (which, incidentally, is by far the most difficult feat to accomplish in flying)—and a steady eye.
Swimming and running will develop those muscles of the back and thigh which are used extensively in the pilotage of the aeroplanes.
Again, the sensation of a horse jumping a hedge is exactly similar to that of an aeroplane just getting off from the ground. With ski-ing, on the other hand, there is the feeling—and, in fact, the action—of plunging desperately into what, at the first attempt, appears to be an interminable and awful space. This is exactly the feeling experienced by the novice in his first trip up aloft. There is a strong similarity to ski-ing at the moment that the nose of the machine is suddenly put down, and she commences to sink rapidly towards the earth.
The next matter to be taken into consideration is that of physical peculiarities. The would-be pilot must be neither too tall nor too short. This is essentially a matter to do with the steering of the aeroplane. If he is too tall, he will find himself very cramped in the confined space between the pilot-seat and the rudder-bar. If he is too short he will discover that his legs will not be long enough to reach that all-important adjunct.
Again with regard to weight, for preference he should be on the light side. There is not very much room in an aeroplane, and, for reasons with which we will deal, the machine is only capable of lifting up to a certain weight.
Take into consideration that an aeroplane is often required to take up two passengers, not to mention bombs, grenades, spare petrol and a machine-gun; every extra pound of weight is of the utmost importance.
His stomach must be strong, for with a weak stomach he will be liable to air-sickness.
Further, he must be possessed of good health. He must not suffer from heart trouble. It has been proved by several very eminent doctors that the rise and the descent through the various altitudes of the atmosphere effect the heart greatly.
Again, he must have good eyesight. This is imperative, for the best part of his work will take place at an altitude of ten thousand feet above the earth. The best age for an air pilot is between nineteen and twenty-four.
The life of a pilot—that is to say, his flying life—varies from three to five years; I may say eighteen months under war conditions. Never more. The great strain on the nerves, although not felt at the time, begins to make itself apparent after two years of flying; then the pilot discovers that he is no longer so keen on going up as he was, that he gets “cold feet” more frequently than he was wont to do in the early days, that he has no longer the nerve to do the little tricks, upon the performance of which he formerly prided himself.
A good air-pilot must be born so, he cannot be made. After years of experience a man may become expert in trick flying, landing, getting off, etc.; but, however long and however diligently he may strive, he can never become the equal of the natural pilot.
Before applying for a Commission in either Service the aspirant to flying honors must first decide which of the two branches he wishes to take up. The two branches, by the way, are pilotage and observation. The difference between the two I will here briefly endeavor to explain.
The pilot is concerned with the flying of the machine, the care of the engine, spare parts, etc., and is responsible for the general condition of the craft; also to see that it is properly tested before each flight.
On the other hand, the observer has a great many subjects to learn. He must be at one and the same time wireless expert, gunner, rifle-shot, artist, photographer and map-maker. He must know something about heavy artillery.
The observer in the Royal Flying Corps is given equal rank to the pilot, but can only wear a half-wing on his tunic where the pilot has full wings.
In the Royal Naval Air Service observers are permitted to wear the bird on their sleeve immediately on joining. However, they are of different rank from the pilot, being either lieutenants or sub-lieutenants, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve.
The appointment to a commission in one of the flying services can be either temporary or permanent. The former holds good until the end of the war, the latter for as long as the would-be airman wishes to retain it. For a period of from four to six months he must undergo a probationary course; if after that time he has served satisfactorily he will be confirmed in his rank.
Upon first joining up he will receive a uniform allowance of £20, and at the confirmation a further £20. These amounts should easily cover his requirements and enable him to buy a complete flying outfit. During the probationary period he will receive 14s. a day in pay; when he is confirmed in rank, 18s. a day in the Royal Naval Air Service, and 20s. per day in the Royal Flying Corps.
Service etiquette plays a prominent part in the matter of uniform. In the military wing he will be expected to wear the button-over tunic and forage cap of the Flying Corps, with breeches and long brown field-boots.
In the R.N.A.S. the matter of dress is a more difficult and more delicate one. In the first place, with regard to the cap, there are four entirely separate badges in the Naval Service: they are (1) the big silver anchor and the gold crown of the regular Navy; (2) the smaller replica of the Royal Naval Reserve; and of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, to which latter branch the aeroplane observer always belongs; and lastly the silver bird of the R.N.A.S., worn only by pilots.
In hosiery the naval flying man must confine his taste to plain white shirts with collars to match; black ties, and socks of the plain black variety. His shoes must be unadorned of toecap, and it is a cardinal sin to leave the buttons of his jacket undone, if he reveal as much as a button of the waistcoat beneath.