e time in the
air for the whole journey was seven hours and forty minutes. In
September 1913 six machines of the squadron took part in the Irish
Command manoeuvres. The outward and homeward journeys by air, of about
four hundred miles each way in distance, including the crossing of the
Irish Sea, were the severest part of the test. The manoeuvre area was
bad for aviation owing to the scarcity of good landing-grounds and the
prevalence of mist and rain. Moreover, the opposing armies were
separated by too small a distance to give full scope to the aeroplanes.
The principal battle took place in a mountain defile. Each of the
machines flew on an average about two thousand miles, that is to say,
about a thousand miles in reconnaissance, and about a thousand in the
journey to and fro. There was no case of engine failure, and no one
landed in hostile territory. A statistical account of the work of the
squadron from May 1913 to June 1914 shows that, during that time, of
eighteen machines in constant use and subject to great exposure only
three were wrecked. This fact speaks volumes for the efficiency of the
squadron. They flew in all weathers, sometimes even when the wind was
faster than the machines. More than once 'tortoise races' on Maurice
Farmans were organized; the winner of these races was the machine that
was blown back fastest over a given course.

The longest flight of all was made by Captain Longcroft in November
1913. In the front seat of a B.E. machine First-Class Air Mechanic H. C.
S. Bullock fitted a petrol tank of his own design, estimated to give at
least eight hours' fuel for the seventy horse-power Renault engine. On
the 22nd of November Captain Longcroft started on this machine, and flew
from Montrose to Portsmouth and back again to Farnborough in seven hours
twenty minutes, without once landing.

Major Burke has left a diary for 1914; some of the entries in it go far
to explain the causes of the efficiency of the squadron. No detail was
too small for his attention; the discipline that he taught was the
discipline of war. 'In practice,' he says, 'a man cannot always be on
the job that will be given him on active service, but he should be
trained with that in view, and every other employment must be regarded
as temporary and a side issue. Further, though barracks must be kept
spotlessly clean, this work must be done by the minimum number of men,
in order to swell the numbers of those available for technical