he evolution of air tactics.
As soon as experience, often hard won at the cost of a valuable life,
opened up new fields of activity for aircraft, the designer and
constructor evolved new designs to meet the new requirements. It was no
small achievement in this period to have solved the problem of inherent
stability, both in theory and practice, so successfully, that from the
aerodynamic standpoint our machines in 1914 compare favourably with
those in use at the end of the war.

In dealing with the evolution of the machine during the three years
prior to the war there are three landmarks: in the autumn of 1911 the
few machines belonging to the Air Battalion failed to reach their
destination for Army Man[oe]uvres; in May, 1912, the Royal Flying Corps
was formed and experiments with a view to meeting military requirements
were for the first time energetically and methodically prosecuted; and
in August, 1914, four squadrons flew to France with machines which had
attained a high degree of stability and were not inferior to any of
those possessed by other countries. When it is remembered in what a
short time these machines were evolved, it is not surprising that
attention had been chiefly confined to the problem of the 'plane and
stability, the engine and speed and reliability. Wireless, bombing,
photography, night flying and machine gunnery had been discussed and
experimented with, but no progress was made comparable to that effected
under war conditions.

Machines and engines before the war were chiefly French. It is
interesting to note those with which No. 3 Squadron, one of the first to
be formed, commenced its career in May, 1912. They consisted of one 50
horse-power Gnome Nieuport, one Deperdussin, which by the way was
privately owned, one Gnome Bristol, two Gnome Bleriot monoplanes, one
Avro and one Bristol box-kite biplane. By September, 1912, the Squadron
possessed fourteen monoplanes, but in that month, owing to the number of
accidents incurred by them, the use of monoplanes was temporarily
forbidden, and it was not until April, 1913, that the Squadron was fully
equipped with B.E. and Maurice Farman biplanes organized in flights.

These types formed the backbone of the Military Wing, which also
included Codys, Breguets, Avros, and, later, Sopwiths. The B.E.2c was
produced by the Royal Aircraft Factory in the autumn of 1913 and
demonstrated its high degree of stability by flying from Aldershot to
Froyle and from F