AVIATION IN PEACE AND WAR.* WHEN man, after many failures,
learnt to fly, his new art developed with such astonishing speed as to leave the public somewhat breathless and confused. It is hard to believe that the first flight in a controlled, power-driven aeroplane was made by Wilbur Wright so recently as December 17th, 1903, and that the first free flight made in Europe was that of the Dane Ellehammer, who in September, 1906, flew 42 metres at a height of about five feet above the ground. Eight years later the War made us all regard the aeroplane as a necessary weapon, and now flying has become a commonplace. We know of no better survey of the new and fascinating subject than Sir F. H. Sykes has given in his brief but most interesting and authoritative book. He describes the formation of the first Aeroplane Company of Royal Engineers in 1911, when he was the only officer in the War Office who had learned to fly and who had made a serious study of the progress of military aviation abroad. The Royal Flying Corps was established in 1912, and the author, as head of the Military Wing, had just two years to organize and train the airmen who went to France with the Expeditionary Force. The Navy, meanwhile, paid great attention to experimental work on engines, scouting, bomb-dropping and so forth, while the soldiers were primarily concerned to • create an organization designed for reconnaissance rather than for fighting. The author then proceeds to outline the course of the war in the air, during which our little Air Force expanded rapidly from a total of 1,844 officers and men with 150 machines to a total of 300,000 officers and men with 22,000 machines, and showed almost from the first its superiority over the enemy. Sir F. H. Sykes attributes the failure of the German air service at the outset, when it was relatively large and well equipped, to " the initial dispersion of units and lack of unified control by the higher command," whereas the four British squadrons--all that we possessed—were concentrated and used systematically to gain information. British airmen's reports enabled Lord French to evade General Von Kluck's turning movements on the retreat from Mons ; it was the British airmen who detected the enemy's sudden swerve to the south-east, away from Paris, against the French left flank, and thus made possible the French attack on the enemy's unprotected right which ruined the German offensive.
We must be content to direct attention to the author's review of the War, so far as it concerned the Air Force. The main purpose of his book is to raise the question of flying in time of peace. It is generally agreed that in the next war,
which, we trust, will be postponed indefinitely, aircraft will play a most important and perhaps even a decisive part.
" A future war, as I see it, will begin something after this manner, provided each side possesses large air forces. Huge day and night bombers will assemble at the declaration of war to penetrate into the enemy's country for the attack of his centres of population, his mobilization zones, his arsenals, • Aviation in ream and War. By Sir F. IL Sykes. Loudon ; Arnold. 18a. ed net.1 harbours, strategic railways, shipping and rolling-stock. Corps and Army Squadrons will concentrate in formation to accom- pany the armies to the front : reconnaissance and fighting patrols will scatter in all directions from coastal air bases to discover the enemy's concentrations and cover our own ; the fleet, whatever its nature, will emerge with its complement of reconnaissance and protective machines and torpedo aircraft for direct action against the enemy's fleet. A few fighting defence units will remain behind."
In a few hours, perhaps, the question of supremacy in the air would be decided. Sir F. H. Sykes admits that no country
can afford to maintain permanently such large air forces as Would assure its superiority at the beginning of a new war. Most of the machines would lie idle, and the design and con- struction of aeroplanes would not be improved under the artificial conditions. If, then, a country is to be prepared to defend itself in the air, it must have a flourishing commercial air-service. Just as the Navy depends upon the Merchant Service as a reserve of men and material, so the Air Force must depend on civil aviation. The author has no liking for the French system of subsidizing air services, partly on con- dition that the machines used are suitable for use in war. He would encourage commercial flying for its own sake, leaving it to develop in its own way, with - the conviction that the trained airmen who would thus become numerous would enable us at any time to face an enemy in the air, provided always that there was a well-organized Air Force to act as a nucleus for the civilians. He looks forward to the time when the commercial services will be cheaper and less intermittent, and when night-flying will be possible with the assistance of such lighthouses as are being established on the London-Paris route. The public, he thinks, will gradually realize that air travel saves much time and trouble. He admits that our commercial services are hampered, as compared with those of France, Germany or America:, by the comparatively small size of our country and the efficiency of our railways connecting the business centres. Moreover, we are too far from the other parts of the Empire to reach them easily by the aeroplane at its present state of development. The author thinks that the airship might be employed for commercial long-distance journeys. But he would encourage by every means the develop- ment of local aeroplane services in the Dominions, in the West Indies, in the African dependencies, and between Egypt and India.
, " If each of our self-governing Dominions and Colonies en- courages civil aviation within its own territory and develops the air-sense of its people, each portion of the Empire by a process of natural expansion and by the gradual extension of local air lines to merge with those from other portions of the Empire will assist in eventually forming a continuous chain of inter-Imperial air communication."
This is a practical and at the same time an inexpensive policy,
which would call for wise guidance rather than for large capital expenditure, and which would confer considerable and increasing benefits on British trade while bringing the different Dominions and Colonies into closer relations.
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