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Aviation History
1928
1928 - 1174.PDF
The motor he employed is an ordinary 50 h.p. Vivinus ; the aeroplane, upon the lines of the Voisin- Farman biplane, was also constructed by MM. Voisin Freres." It is, perhaps, significant that the first photograph of an aeroplane to appear in FLIGHT should have been a flying view ; ever since, and during the last few years particularly, photographs of aircraft " grass-cutting " have been a familiar and appreciated feature of our pages. In the " Leader " of our first number we out- lined the policy which was to be FLIGHT'S, and made the statement : " Primarily, of course, everyone's attention is chiefly concentrated nowadays on the motor-driven aeroplane, or on other types of machine which similarly need no gasbag ; but, for all that, it would be absurd for FLIGHT to neglect the airship, the kite, or our old friend the spherical balloon. Anything which tends towards progress in aerial navigation, whether by direct achievement or by the indirect method of lessons learnt, essentially comes within our immediate purview. " That policy we have always aimed to maintain, and we will leave it to our readers to judge whether or not we have been successful. . To the British Aircraft Industry, which from the first has given us such support as it could afford, we extend our sincere thanks for 20 years of co- operation. Many of the firms now in existence did their share towards making the publication of FLIGHT possible in the early days ; and we are happy to count them still among our oldest and best friends. ••> • • Sir H 2h ^nen ^ was announced that Air Trenchard Marshal Sir John Salmond would join the Air Council in January, 1929, the inference was immediately drawn that the retirement of Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Hugh Trenchard from his position of Chief of the Air Staff could not be much longer deferred. It is now announced that that event, so often prophesied, will actually take place a year hence. Such an event will mark the end of an epoch, for it is Sir Hugh Trenchard who has laid the foundation stone of the first air force in the history of the world, and has been building on that stone for the last nine years. War is the best school for a fighting force, but it is not the best cradle. The Royal Air Force was born in war time, but in a sense it was still-born. At the end of 1918 Great Britain had a huge machine for fighting in the air, but it was not a fighting service in the British conception of the term. In 1919 that machine practically disappeared, and Sir Hugh Trenchard was entrusted with the task of making a fresh start and building up almost from the beginning. It was a huge task, though perhaps not quite so tremendous as at first sight it may have seemed. It was inevi- table that the experience and the traditions of the Navy and the Army should be drawn upon, and it was fortunate that this mass of experience was available. It was also inevitable that Army methods should count for more than Navy methods in the new service. All this being so, the work might have been counted moderately straightforward to a man who had behind him a public school, Woolwich or Sandhurst, Camberley or Quetta. The extra- ordinary thing is that Sir Hugh Trenchard has none of these qualifications. He was educated privately, he entered the army through the militia, and he spent all his army career, not holding high staff appointments, but as an ordinary regimental officer. DECEMBER 27, 1928 For 13 years he was almost constantly fighting in South Africa and in Nigeria. In 1912 he learnt to fly and joined the R.F.C. .(Military Wing). Two years later he was again engaged in warfare, and France occupied all his attention for the next four years. In all military operations he proved himself an able and inspiring leader, and during the four years in France he displayed organising abilities of a very high order. Yet on the face of it, this fighting career hardly marked him out as the one man fitted to take in hand the formation of a new fighting service. Many a general has won the affection of his fighting men in the field, but has failed when seated at the desk of the administrator. Sir Hugh Trenchard did not fail. It was, in fact, in 1919, when his 17 years of warfare were behind him, that Sir Hugh Trenchard com- menced what was to prove the greatest work of his life. It was probably the best thing which could have happened that the enormous, ill-disciplined air force, equipped with machines most of which were already obsolescent, melted away in a few months under the double impetus of the charms of civil life and the national demands for economy. The Chief of the Air Staff was able to keep but a few of the officers and men, and so he was free to pick only the very best. " Best " did not mean merely the most courageous or the most skilful pilots ; it meant best material on which to build up a totally new force. The force had no traditions, except those of fighting. It had little or no standards of peace-time conduct. Its uniform was in a state of flux ; new titles of rank had to be invented. The Chief of the Air Staff was at that time free to decide whether officers should be permanently posted to one unit, as in the army, or should be in one pool and only temporarily posted to units, as in the navy. He was free to decide whether a pilot should normally be an officer or an airman. He had to provide for the future supply of both commissioned and other ranks. He had to institute an intellectual study of that novel concep- tion, Air Defence. He had to deal with many problems of equipment, of aerodromes, and of quarters. The need for economy may have helped him no little in the earlier days, but it must have tried him severely as his schemes began to develop. He had to deal with a series of Secretaries of State and Undersecretaries, some apathetic, some incom- petent, and some (finally) both able and zealous. WTe have said that on paper Sir Hugh Trenchard had few qualifications for such a task. It should be added that at the beginning his co-adjutors were all very youthful men for the positions which they were called on to hold, and nearly all of them had more experience in the air or on the field than at the desk. Yet the work has been done, and it has, beyond question, been well done. The Royal Air Force is still small, but it is growing. Its flying efficiency is admittedly the best of any air service in the world. Both Cranwell and Halton turn out each year a class of officer and airman of just the right type for the service. At Andover the problems of Air Defence are studied, and staff officers are trained. Some points of Sir Hugh Trenchard's policy may be criticised, and some may in course of time be found wrong—the same can be said of any administrator. Looked at broadly, the work of Sir Hugh Trenchard has been good, and he has gloriously stultified by his later career the decisions of the Sandhurst examiners thirty years ago. 1080
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