, and could not be touched either in
heart or in pocket.

But with the institution of the Royal Flying Corps the official heart
began to warm slightly, and certain tests were laid down for those
manufacturers who aspired to sell their machines to the new arm of
the Service. These tests, providing for fuel capacity up to 4.0 miles,
speeds up to 85 miles an hour, and heights up to 3500 feet, would now
be regarded as very elementary affairs. "Looping the loop" was still a
dangerous trick for the exhibiting airman and not an evolution; while
the "nose-dive" was an uncalculated entry into the next world.

The first important stage in the history of the new arm was reached in
July, 1914, when the wing system was abolished, and the Royal Naval Air
Service became a separate unit of the Imperial Forces. The first public
appearance of the sailor airmen was at a proposed review of the fleet by
the King at a test mobilization. The King was unable to attend, but the
naval pilots carried out their part of the programme very creditably
considering the polyglot nature of their sea-planes. A few weeks later
and the country was at war.

There can be no doubt that the Great War has had an enormous forcing
influence upon the science of aviation. In times of peace the old game
of private enterprise and official neglect would possibly have been
carried on in well-marked stages. But with the terrific incentive of
victory before them, all Governments fostered the growth of the new arm
by all the means in their power. It became a race between Allied and
enemy countries as to who first should attain the mastery of the air.
The British nation, as usual, started well behind in the race, and their
handicap would have been increased to a dangerous extent had Germany
not been obsessed by the possibilities of the air-ship as opposed to the
aeroplane. Fortunately for us the Zeppelin, as has been described in an
earlier chapter, failed to bring about the destruction anticipated by
its inventor, and so we gained breathing space for catching up the enemy
in the building and equipment of aeroplanes and the training of pilots
and observers.

War has set up its usual screens, and the writer is only permitted a
very vague and impressionistic picture of the work of the R.F.C. and
R.N.A.S. Numerical details and localities must be rigorously suppressed.
Descriptions of the work of the Flying Service must be almost as bald
as those laconic reports sent in by