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Our ignorance of man's history. The conquest of the sea and the conquest of the air. Pioneers of flight. The physical basis of flight. Essential features of an aeroplane. Two kinds of aircraft--floating machines and soaring machines. Early legends and adventures. Progress the...
When the war broke out, the Royal Flying Corps, as has been told, took the field with all its available forces. The four squadrons which were ready for service went abroad at on...
13. Chapter 13In November 1911 the Prime Minister requested the standing sub-committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence, under the chairmanship of Lord Haldane, to consider the future dev...
14. Chapter 14The German war of the twentieth century, like the German wars of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, was carefully planned and prepared by the military rulers of Prussia. T...
9. Chapter 9We know next to nothing of man's greatest achievements. His written history is the history of yesterday, and leaves him very much the same being as it finds him, with the same h...
12. Chapter 12Those who fear, or pretend to fear, that England may witness a revolution like the French Revolution of the eighteenth century or the Russian Revolution of the twentieth century...
15. Chapter 15When the war broke out the Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps had already been separated from the Military Wing, and had become the Royal Naval Air Service. Captain Murray Sue...
10. Chapter 10The age of the flying machine had come at last. A power-driven aeroplane had been built, and had been flown under the control of its pilot. What remained to do was to practise w...
11. Chapter 11In all these doings England bore but a small part. English aviators were few; and those who distinguished themselves in public competition had learned their flying in France. To...
8. Chapter 8The squadrons take to France, in August 1914, all efficient pilots, and all serviceable machines. What was left. Further call for fighting aeroplanes. The making of the new air...
5. Chapter 5Institution of the Royal Flying Corps. Plans prepared by General Henderson, Captain Sykes, and Major MacInnes. History in the making. Choice of the squadron as the unit of the n...
4. Chapter 4English 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 Chatha...
6. Chapter 6The Prussian doctrine of war. The Serajevo murders. Austria and Serbia. Germany refuses mediation and makes war on Russia and France. Great Britain declares war, August 4, 1914....
3. Chapter 3English aviation late and sporadic. Private adventure and sport as against continental organization. Prospect of war the cause of the formation of the Royal Flying Corps. A few...
7. Chapter 7Strength of the Naval Wing. Progress in wireless and in armament. Uncertain purposes. The stimulant of war. Mr. F. K. McClean. Coastal patrols. Channel patrols. Airship logs. A...
1. Chapter 1Our ignorance of man's history. The conquest of the sea and the conquest of the air. Pioneers of flight. The physical basis of flight. Essential features of an aeroplane. Two ki...
2. Chapter 2The Wrights improve their machine, and practise it in many flights over Huffman Prairie. Indifference of the neighbouring farmers; and of American, French, and British Governmen...