of the war. The output of the
Rolls-Royce works, in accordance with the agreement, was placed at the
disposal of the Admiralty.

This immediate co-operation between the two great services did the work
of the old Air Committee, which had quietly faded away. The War
Committee could not take its place; it was a large body of Ministers,
too numerous to agree on special decisions, and not expert enough to
deal with the complicated problems of aviation. The understanding
between the two services seemed to augur well for the future.

The available contractors and types of engine having been allotted, it
became necessary to decide what orders should be placed. In this matter
the initiative rested with the directorate. Very little experience was
available as a guide to what the expeditionary force might require in
the future. Every order placed was practically a gamble, and every new
type of aircraft and engine gave the staff twofold cause for anxiety.
Would the new machine prove reliable when the trade produced it, and, if
it proved reliable, would it then fulfil the rapidly changing
requirements of the war? The quickest way to produce aeroplanes in
quantity would have been to choose a few of the best types, and to
standardize these for production in bulk at all the available factories.
To do this would have been a fatal mistake. The art of military aviation
was changing and growing rapidly; any hard and fast system would have
proved a huge barrier to progress, making it impossible to take
advantage of the lessons taught every week by experience in the field.
At a later stage of the war the Germans standardized their excellent
Mercedes engine. This gave them an immediate advantage, but, as
knowledge increased and construction improved, what had been an
advantage became a brake upon their progress.

Even the lessons of experience were not always easy to read. An
aeroplane and its engine are judged by the pilot who uses them. Every
one who knows the Royal Flying Corps knows how sensitive to rumour and
how contagious opinion is among pilots. This is only natural; a pilot
trusts his life to his machine, and his machine, if he is to fly and
fight confidently, must be, like Caesar's wife, above suspicion. To
distrust the machine is to suffer a kind of paralysis in the air. The
breath of unfavourable rumour easily takes away the character of a
machine, and makes it, in effect, valueless. A pilot has one life, and
has to take many