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before the war’s end. Doubtless they had Pemberton Billings of their own: civilian public figures desperately trying to instil a little reason into the military and political maladministration of an insane war.
    At any rate the inflammatory rhetoric in Westminster and the press had its effect. Together with the military impasse in France and the failure of the British authorities at home to make provision to counter the German air raids, it helped unseat Asquith as Prime Minister and install Lloyd George in December 1916. The new coalition government at once put the Ministry of Munitions in charge of the aircraft industry and made the newAir Board responsible for allocating resources. From 1917 onwards British aircraft improved markedly in both quality and quantity – and this despite 281,600 working days being lost that year to strikes. The number of different types of aircraft was cut from fifty-three to thirty, a process of rationalisation that continued until the war’s end. (It was much needed. In four years of war the Sopwith Aviation Co. alone produced some thirty different types.) By the time of the Armistice the British aircraft industry had 347,112 employees and in that final year of war it produced over 30,000 aircraft. In a little over four years and after a very poor beginning it had become the world’s biggest aircraft industry. 18 , 19
    *
    The sheer proliferation of early aircraft shapes and types that Britain flew in the first air war is examined in the following chapter. This variety can be construed as partly the result of administrative disorganisation. But even more, it was a product of the still experimental nature of flying itself, when ‘suck it and see’ designs and piloting techniques were often improvised with more optimism than understanding of aerodynamics. Merely getting airborne could be hazardous enough; staying there was by no means guaranteed. Powered flight using wings rather than gasbags to stay aloft took place in a realm that was new to Homo sapiens , who was obliged to deduce its laws from scratch the hard way.
    1* For an explanation of this classification system see the Note on p.319
    2* In the following year, 1917, nearly 800 pilots would be killed in the UK in training accidents alone.

2
Why Biplanes?

    It happened during the spring of 1914, at one of the famous Hendon Saturday afternoons. A very strong, gusty wind was blowing… The first machine to be brought out was an 80 h.p. Morane monoplane piloted by Philippe Marty, a Frenchman, who asked me whether I would like to accompany him as his passenger. With the enthusiasm of youth, I agreed to do so.
    Marty taxied out to the far side of the aerodrome in order to take off into the wind; but the machine left the ground all too quickly, with the result that a strong gust lifted us up about forty feet in the air and then left us in a stalled attitude, with practically no forward speed. The machine staggered for an ominous moment and then stalled.
    I have never forgotten the horrible sensations of the next few seconds, and I don’t suppose I ever shall. The left wing seemed to drop out of sight, and I saw the right wing sweep round the sky above us like a sort of windmill vane. Then the roar of the engine stopped.
    I thanked heaven that Marty had switched off in time, for a second later the Morane’s nose hit the ground with a bang and a crash, just as she had settled into the position of a vertical nose-dive. As she cartwheeled over on to her back I ducked well down inside the fuselage, and there we were – upside down, unable to move an inch and fairly soaked with petrol from the burst tank.
    Meanwhile the aerodrome staff had hastened to the scene of disaster. When the machine’s tail was lifted up we both fellout of the fuselage, whereupon all our rescuers began to laugh. This only sent Marty off into spasms of mirth-provoking Anglo-French fury. All of which may have conveyed the impression that we were rather a heartless set