Raleigh, 1922, War in the Air
- Walter Raleigh. The War in the Air: Being the Story of the The part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force. Vol. 1. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1922.
Gives historical background on aviation, with the Wright Brothers in 1903 as a landmark, then focuses on the British air forces—their development and activities in the war.
"For aircraft the possibilities are immense. It is not extravagant to say that the 17th of December 1903, when the Wright brothers made the first free flight through the air in a power-driven machine, marks the beginning of a new era in the history of the world." (p. 1)
"At the date of the armistice, the 11th of November 1918, there were operating in France and Belgium ninety-nine squadrons of the Royal Air Force. In August 1914 there had been less than two hundred and fifty officers in the service, all told; in November 1918 there were over thirty thousand. In August 1914 the total of machines, available for immediate war service, was about a hundred and fifty; in November 1918 there were more than twenty-two thousand in use, almost all of them enormously more powerful and efficient than the best machines of the earlier date." (pp. 5–6)
George Cayley, Francis Herbert Wenham, James Glaisher, Percy Sinclair Pilcher — none of them can be found in the Dictionary of National Biography — suggesting their obscurity when they lived. (pp. 16−17)
Royal Society, John Wilkins (w:John Wilkins) book Mathematical Magic, second volume Daedalus; or Mechanical Motions — chapters 7 and 8 deal with flying. (Wilkins, 1648, Mathematical Magick; w:Mathematical Magick )
Links
Full-text scan at Internet Archive.
