There is an ever-increasing number of people who desire to appreciate the main issues of technical subjects unconnected with their own professions: to such, primarily, I address this Introduction to the study of flight.

There is no evading the fundamental technology of any real subject, whether commercial, scientific, or political by nature; the reader must ever provide the interest if he would receive any return whatsoever for his purchase of the author's capital. In this case, as the capital is so small, the initial interest on the reader's part must be all the greater.

The scope of the book is indicated by the arrangement and character of the chapters. I have divided the treatment of the subject into four main parts. The first part relates to the fundamental principles of flight; the second part is concerned with practical accomplishment; it refers in detail to the work of certain notable pioneers like Lilienthal and the Wrights, and also has chapters on modern development, as demonstrated, for example, at the military aeroplane trials of 1912. The third part is mainly historical, and is placed in this order so that the significance of the "milestones" may more readily be appreciated.

The pictures in this book are a few of the many hundreds that are prepared in the usual course by the staff of Flight, and are typical of the illustrations that appear in that journal every week. It is, of course, on the periodical that the reader who would remain au fait with current developments must necessarily rely for immediate information, and if this book succeeds in assisting those who read it to follow the later steps of this new movement with greater interest and appreciation of detail, it will have served its purpose well.

The great charm of flying lies in the extraordinary fascination of the problem of flight, which has in numerable aspects and every one of them interesting. There are tricks to every trade, but where will you find an occupation so replete with important issues as is the field of aviation today? It is not alone to the pilot that this privilege belongs; the engineer who builds the aeroplane, and the student who studies the science, are alike under the same great thrall.

It is the intensity of the interest that tells in flight. No matter which way you turn, there is always some new point to whet the intellect and to hold the mind absorbed. Everyone feels it, once he knows how an aeroplane flies; but how few, relatively speaking, do know, when by knowing is meant the full understanding of what you can see any day that it pleases you to go to Hendon, or to Brooklands, or to any other centre of aviation, where the aeroplane is daily in the air?

Curiosity was the impulse that formerly took the Frenchmen by their thousands to see those early efforts at Juvisy on the outskirts of Paris; but it is the interest born of understanding that to-day holds still more thousands of believers firm-rooted in their conviction as to the future of flight.

How well I remember one of those Juvisy meetings! It was a Sunday, and all Paris, with the better half of France, was there already when my tardy train drew up at the quiet little station beyond the environs of the metropolis. In the roads and in the fields were motor-cars and vehicles of every description, some abandoned, some still occupied by irate sightseers who had no more chance of getting nearer to the show than they had of flying. The time-worn metaphor still applied, but how soon it was to lose its meaning.

Above the green that day men were already in flight. Big Voisin biplanes loped heavily through the air, while lighter monoplanes hopped a sprightly measure on the grass. Fanfares from ceaseless trumpeters kept up a weird music on the ear, and the dense crowd surged with the restless motion of the sea, watching and cheering, running to the palings and standing on chairs, and anon subsiding for a moment to seek refreshment in a cup of coffee and a sandwich, for which, if I remember rightly, the restaurateur disdained to give change for five francs.

It was all truly wonderful; but how glad I was that I left early, and suffered myself to be carried by struggling humanity into a compartment of the last train that returned to Paris. Three hours we occupied on that journey, but we did reach Paris, which was more than could be said of those who tried to get home later in the evening. Some people who left Paris by rail that afternoon never even reached Juvisy; for the story went that an over-excited crowd, unable to find accommodation, amiably invaded the line by way of passive resistance, to prevent outward-bound trains from disgorging still more passengers whose only thought then was how to get home again. Certain it is, at any rate, that many people had the memory of their first experience in aviation firmly implanted in their minds by the unexpected necessity of spending a night under the open sky.

To-day, flying has become more commonplace, but it has not become less wonderful. When you see the modern aeroplane start away so easily, and gradually disappear in the distance without so much as a flutter from its straight course, it seems almost uncanny that so much should have been accomplished in such a short time, and with machines that have, au fond, been so much alike all through. In a few more years the general public will not even stop to think that it does not really know how an aeroplane flies it will just take it for granted, as it takes its telephone and its tube and its taxis.

But for the man and the woman who realize that a new thing is worth knowing, and who take a serious interest in the subject now that it is in its infancy, and, therefore, seems more easily to be understood, there should be no such apathy of mind. They will be keen to follow every phase of the game, and the bare news of a short press paragraph will unfold its own story without further words: the milestones of aviation's history will have more than the mere romance of triumph to make them interesting to those who trouble to study the subject now.

I thought then, and I have thought since, how like an aeroplane is to the magic carpet of our childhood's days; only on some machines one does not perhaps altogether relish sitting so very near the edge.

In flight, the sense of motion is not in the least what you would expect from a prior knowledge of the speed attained. It is the proximity of stationary objects that gives one the impression of velocity. On an aeroplane, the ground is so very far away and so very expansive that it is almost an effort of will to keep the eye on an earth-bound object for sufficient length of time to appreciate that one is moving relatively to it at all. The speed through the air is, of course, enormous, and directly behind the propeller the relative wind is so terrific that it is difficult to see without goggles. The very flesh of one's face seems to drag at its foundations, it sags and quivers in this astounding draught, which drives the very breath backwards down your throat until you become accustomed to the art of breathing under these strange conditions.

There is, indeed, often a curious feeling of standing up against a solid wall of wind that is trying to blow you backwards, but never have I experienced quite the same sensation of rushing through the air that one gets on a fast car, where the draught is merely an accessory to the fundamental impression of speed resulting from the motion over the road, which is always directly in the line of sight.

It is one of the phenomena peculiar to the process of getting aloft in an aeroplane that the country, which lies very naturally ahead when you start off on the preliminary run over the ground, in some mysterious way seems suddenly to spread itself out beneath your view like a vast carpet. The transition takes place almost mysteriously: you are looking ahead, and then, without realizing that any- thing definite has happened, you find yourself looking down.

These impressions do not necessarily come to mind during the first flight, but after a while you begin to notice such details. Little peculiarities catch the attention: you are struck, for example, with the dignified way in which the machine seems to stride up into the higher levels step by step, as the elevator is tilted and eased off under the control of the pilot. Soon you get accustomed to noting the lie of the land, to watching for the gusts in the hollows and over the spinneys, where aerial disturbances are sure to be found whenever the wind is blowing. Perhaps the machine will sink a little, like a small boat in a lop, and then climb out over the crest of some invisible wave, which you feel is there, even though you cannot see it. Or there may be an indescribable impression of flying through an aerial shoal, especially when edging round into the wind for the landing.

At the end of the flight comes the glide, most exhilarating of all its episodes, when the aeroplane turns into a toboggan and you slide down full tilt towards the ground. There is nothing quite like it for the real joy of an unalloyed sensation. Mother Earth spreads her green quilt invitingly, and you slither down an invisible stairway with the confident abandon with which you fling yourself over the balusters in a dream. How smoothly the wings cleave the air, how gently the engine ticks round at its ease after its strong work aloft! It is the dignity of repose in motion. Of the same kind is the suppressed energy of a loco's rolling stride as it enters the terminus, or the liner's majestic approach up the fairway to the dock.

The study of aviation is a real science, and the business of aeroplane construction is sound engineering: both are worthy of the professional interest of men who have already laid the necessary foundation of technical knowledge. The former, the scientific side, has perhaps the wider scope of influence, for it might well be numbered among the pages made interesting by Sir Edwin Ray Lankester in his Science from an Easy Chair. Aviation is, in fact, an excellent introduction to science, because of the breadth and of the intensity of its interest to those who have never professed to be scientific. It puts science in a pleasing light, for, starting in mystery, it ends in simplicity, and yet leaves the student respect for the wonderful.

More important, in many ways, than any reason yet mentioned for being interested in flight is its national significance. The aeroplane and the airship have become armaments of first-class importance, and have been developed as such by France and Germany to an extent that has placed those countries in possession of large aerial fleets. British policy has, unfortunately, been to await the march of events elsewhere, and, in consequence, our aerial force is woefully small. Lacking the spontaneous enthusiasm so characteristic of nations farther south, people in England have been comparatively apathetic towards a movement that they do not understand and which makes, to the majority of them, no personal appeal. Living on an island as we do, however, superiority in the air is as necessary to our safe defence as is the command of the sea, and for that reason alone every thinking Englishman should so far study the subject of flight as to arouse in himself an interest sufficient to ensure his support of the principle of British aerial supremacy.


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