nd from being
built. These were the beginnings of the famous Sopwith machines, and
especially of the single-seater biplane scout type, with its many
varieties. The Sopwith 'Tabloid', the Sopwith 'Pup', the Sopwith
'Camel', and, last and best of all, the Sopwith 'Snipe', which was new
at the front when the war ended--all these were engines of victory. So
were the equally famous machines designed for the Government by Mr. de
Havilland, of which the D.H. 4 is perhaps the greatest in achievement.
Mr. de Havilland built his first machine early in 1910, at his own cost.
On its trial it travelled some forty yards down a slope under its own
power, then it rose too steeply into the air, and when it was corrected
by Mr. de Havilland, who piloted it, the strain proved too great for the
struts, which were made of American whitewood; the left main plane
doubled up, and the machine, falling heavily to the ground thirty-five
yards from its starting-point, was totally wrecked. The great things of
the air have most of them been done by survivors from wrecks. Mr. de
Havilland went to work again on a much improved machine, designed to be
an army biplane; in December 1910 he became a member of the staff of the
balloon factory at Farnborough, and had a main hand, as shall be told
hereafter, in the best of the Government aeroplane designs.

These are instances only; the story of progress is everywhere the same.
The wonderful national air force was built by the skill and intelligence
of a few men out of the mass of material offered to them by the private
pioneers. The work of these pioneers can best be concisely described in
connexion with the various centres, or aerodromes, where they gathered
together to put their ideas to the test of practice. Not all the early
experimenters were attracted to these communities; some preferred to
work in secret; but the most fruitful work was done in open fellowship.
Among those who, in the days before aerodromes, devoted time and effort
to the problem of flight, Mr. Jose Weiss deserves more than a passing
mention. After experimenting with models, he devised a man-carrying
bird-like glider, twenty-four feet in span, and in the year 1905, while
flight was still no more than a rumour, flew it successfully on the
slopes of Amberley Mount, between Arundel and Pulborough. His pilots
were Mr. Gordon England and Mr. Gerald Leake. The former of these, in a
wind of about twenty-five miles an hour, rose some hundred f