ce,
many trained engineers, in civil life, who were eminently capable of
supervising the mechanical equipment, but who did not want to learn to
fly, and could be made into indifferent pilots only at a great expense
of time and labour, and at not a little risk. At first the equipment
officer was concerned only with stores, but soon the same grading was
given to specialist officers concerned with wireless telegraphy,
photography, or machine-guns. At a later time in the war some senior
officers, skilled in the handling of men, learned to fly, and were at
once given the command of squadrons. A man with a talent for command,
who can teach and maintain discipline, encourage his subordinates, and
organize the work to be done, will have a good squadron, and is free
from those insidious temptations which so easily beset commanding
officers who have earned distinction as pilots. Yet the instinct of the
Royal Air Force is strong--that a commanding officer should know the
air, if he is to control aircraft. The right solution, no doubt, is that
he should be able to fly well, and should be careful not to fly too
much. A born commander who cannot fly is likely to have a better
squadron than a born flyer who cannot command.

Technical matters, that is to say, all matters of design and equipment,
were controlled by the War Office. This cast a great responsibility on
the War Office, and might have worked unhappily, if the authorities at
home had concentrated their attention on mechanical improvements without
sufficient regard to the men who had to use them. But the two officers
who, in the beginning, were chiefly responsible for development at home
subsequently held commands in the field, so that theory was not divorced
from practice. Colonel Trenchard was the first officer in the Royal
Flying Corps to command a wing, and Colonel Brancker, at a later time,
from August to December, 1915, was given the command of the Third Wing
in France.

The whole development and expansion of the Royal Flying Corps in France
was carried on while the conditions were altering every month, at high
pressure, in rivalry with the Germans. It was a race to obtain machines
of the greatest possible speed consistent with reliability. But no
machine is reliable when it is first turned out. Only experience can
prove a mechanism, discover its faults, and teach the right method of
handling it. This experience had to be gained in war. The conditions of
success were n