his certificate, flying a Farman
machine. Then he went to the Central Flying School, where he took the
necessary courses and passed the necessary examination. On the 1st of
October he was appointed instructor on the staff of the school. These
were arduous times; an efficient British air force was yet to make, and
the political horizon was even more threatening than it was a year
later. He continued at this work till the 23rd of September 1913, when
he was appointed assistant commandant to Captain Godfrey Paine, a post
which he held up to the outbreak of war. By that time a very large
proportion of the officers of the Flying Corps had passed through his
hands. His policy was the policy of Thorough. He played his part in
producing the efficiency of the original Flying Corps.

On the 7th of August 1914 he was appointed Officer Commanding the Royal
Flying Corps (Military Wing), with the temporary rank of
lieutenant-colonel. The headquarters, the aircraft park, and the four
squadrons left for France at once. Mr. G. B. Cockburn at that time was
at Farnborough, where, from April onwards, he had held an appointment in
the Aeronautical Inspection Department. He has kindly contributed a
note:

'The squadrons hurried off to the front,' he says, and in a short time
there remained practically nothing in the way of machines or pilots in
the country. Colonel Trenchard took charge to create something out of
nothing. His presence at Farnborough had a most enlivening effect on
every one who came in touch with him, and as I had to pass through to
him all the machines issued in those days, it was my good fortune to
have very close observation of those methods which have led to his great
success.'

In his attempt to create something out of nothing he had the
whole-hearted support and help of the small but admirably efficient
aeronautical department of the War Office, directed for the time by
Colonel Brancker. One great strength of military aviation in its early
days was that it attracted into its service, by natural magnetism, men
of an adventurous disposition. The dangers of the Flying Corps, rather
than the good pay that it offered, brought to it recruits strong in all
the virtues of the pioneer. No one who covets a life of routine, with
defined duties and limited liabilities, ever yet took up with aviation
as a profession. The men who explored and took possession of the air in
the twentieth century are the inheritors of the men who ex