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Aviation History
1914
1914 - 0696.PDF
hand, and these include practically the whole of our best-known pilots and our most tried machines. Even now theTe is time for more to come in, and it is thought that some of the more famous Continerttal pilots may help to swell the entry list. So far, then, the promoters and the Royal Aero Club have no reason to be displeased with the advance results of the race. Not the least interesting fact in connection with this event is the action of the Home Office in consenting to exempt competitors in the race from the incidence of the Orders under the Aerial Navigation Acts, which prohibit airmen from entering or leaving England without alight ing in certain prescribed areas in order to report their arrival or movements to the authorities. It is evident from this that the Home Office has got over its panic regarding the movement of aircraft over these Islands. The Aerial Navigation Acts were passed, and the Orders under them formulated, when the authorities were in a state of absolute fright caused by the sudden and somewhat belated realization that the problem of man-flight had indeed been solved. At first, these orders were enforced in a foolishly restrictive manner, as witness the trouble in connection with last year's Aerial Derby which had to be postponed on account of official interference of a kind which can only be called silly and short-sighted. However, it is evident that a more equal appreciation of what may and what may not be done in the air in relation to the safety of the State exists in the official mind— which is something for which to give thanks. • * • One of the best articles we have ever read Aeroofan* on l^e su'3Jec' °f tne aeroplane in war is in War. t*iat ^rom l^e Pen °f ^e well-known war correspondent, Mr. Prevost Battersby, in the Morning Post of the 29th ult. In many circles it has come to be assumed that the function of the aeroplane in the wars of the future will be that of reconnaissance, and reconnaissance alone. While it is scarcely within the province of a journal such as FLIGHT to dogmatise on matters which properly fall within the scope of the professional soldier, we have never taken that view as it stands, preferring rather to think that while the ultimate duty of aircraft will prove to be the collection and trans mission of information likely to prove of value to a commander in the field, that duty will only fall to an aerial force after the question of the supremacy of the air has been settled in favour of one side or the other. Once that question has been decided and aircraft have assumed ® ® ROYAL FLYING CORPS. THE following announcement appeared in the London Gazette of the a6th uK. :— R.F.C.—Military Wing.—Second Lieut. Lofus A. Bryan, South Irish Horse, is appointed to the Reserve. May 29th, 1914. The following appointments were announced in the London Gautti of the 30th ult. :— Royal Naval Air Service.—Engr.-Lieuts. Gerald West Storey Aldwell, Charles Russell jekyl Randall, and Edward Featherstone Brigjjs to be Squadron Commanders ; Wilfred Briggs, Thomas Reginald Cave-Browne-Cave, Henry Meyrick Cave-Browne-Cave, and Charles Dempster Breese, to be Flight Lieutenants. Assistant Paymaster Charles Robert Finch Noyesto be Lieutenant. The following officer of the Royal Naval Reserve has teen appointed a Flight C >mmander: Lieutenant Tames Lindsay Travers. The following officers of the Royal Naval Reserve have been appointed r light Lieutenants : Lieutenants Reginald Lennox George Marix and Hugh Alexander Littleton : Sub-Lieutenants Ian Hew egrave Stair Dilrymple-Ctark, Ivor Guv Vaughan Fowler, Ronald Hargrave Kershaw, Thomas Alfred Rainey, Douglas George Young, Richard Edmund Charles Peirse, Christopher Draper, Hans Acwoith Busk and Edward Thomas Newton-Clare. JULY 3, IQI4- their ultimate functions, the commander who has secured his place in the air will be in the position of the player who is throwing loaded dice. These appear to be the conclusions arrived at by the able writer of the article we have mentioned, for he says :— "The aeroplane is a wonderful instrument for reconnaissance, but such duties may come to be the last which it will have to perform. Most certainly it will, just as surely as the horseman, be challenged to fight for its information, and must be armed and equipped to accept the challenge. And where will such arming, once begun, be likely to lead us ? Surely to the provision of a fleet whose prime objective must be the discovery and destruction of the enemy's aircraft. Just as the cavalry fight must often precede the search for information, and the possession of it rest with the victors, so the first effort of the Flying Corps commander will be to beat his opponent to the ground and keep the air clear for his own purposes of reconnaissance. Nor will it be for reconnaissance only that he will use the field that he has won. What is left of his fleet will be employed for a ceaseless harrying of the enemy's fortresses and camps, and in attempts to destroy the depots on his lines of com munication. In such a forecast one is not forgetting that the aeroplane has not yet been seriously opposed, and that the shell and the gun to prove its special bane may already have been invented. Most certainly the plane will have soon to confront the invention ranged against every new engine of war, and for that reason it seems probable that much which is at present regarded as within the aircraft's sphere, such as directing the fire of batteries in a general action, is likely to disappear from it. What has not been at all realised in this country is the extraordinary element introduced into war by the aircraft's mobility and new avenue of attack. The consternation which of old could only be produced in the threatened country after perhaps months of effort and the expenditure of millions can now be caused by aircraft in a few hours at practically no cost at all. It may be that all the lurid romance written round the new weapon has really dulled the general intelligence as to its coming import. One scarcely dares to talk now of dropping bombs from the sky ; but, on the other hand it seems like a paltering with the most serious realities to go on writing of aircraft as a supplementary method of reconnaissance which may be put out of action by fog. The nation which continues thinking on such childish lines will pay dear for its ineptitude. The aeroplane is the deadliest weapon of man's invention, and it may prove of the greatest service to such a nation as ours with a temperamental dislike to military service. The aeroplane is not going to supersede the Army, but it is going to alter considerably its relation to war. In what respects it would be idle to dogmatise ; what one desires is to produce the intense conviction of its power which may lead to right appreciation of the work before it." These are words pregnant with a deep meaning for us. The truest word that Mr. Prevost Battersby has uttered in this article is when he says that the potentialities of the aeroplane have not been realised by the general public in this country. At all costs we must be as supreme in the air as we are on the seas. That is the very minimum to be required for the safety of the Empire, and sooner the realisation of this sinks into the public mind, the sooner we shall be on the high road to safety. ® ® The following gentlemen have been appointed Flight Lieutenants : Right Hon. Lord Edward Arthur Grosvenor and Charles Francis Beevor. Dated July 1st, 1914. Distinguished Visitors at the Concentration Camp. ON Friday, last week, the Prime Minister, accompanied by Mr, Baker, Financial Secretary to the War Office, Mr. Cyril Asquith and Miss Asquith, paid .1 visit to the Concentration Camp of the R. F.C. at Netheravon, being received by Brigadier-General Sir D. Henderson, K.C.B., and Lieut.-Col. Sykes, commanding the Royal Flying Corps, Military Wing. During the afternoon, Col. Seely joined the party, and went foi a flight on a B.E., piloted by Capt. Todd. The party afterwards visited the Central Flying School at Upavon. On Monday the visitors to the camp included Mr. Winston Churchill and Lord Roberts, as well as a number of foreign military attaches, among them being Major Count Greppi (Italy), Major M. Renner (Germany), Col. Inagaki, Major Tanikawa and Capt. Stubuya (Japan), Lieut.-Col. Vicens (Spain), Lieut.-Col. G. O. Squier and Capt. Wood (U.S.A.), and Major Horwath (Austria-Hungary). During the afternoon Lord Roberts presented a number of prizes which had been won in various athletic contests.
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