season of Imperial rejoicing from being clouded by party quarrels. There is one last word to be said. An election may be upon us at any moment, and it is our business to be ready. In the last two contests the country has had some experience of the Conservative organisation, and a volume would be needed to do justice to its defects. We are beaten on every point by the rival office -intelligence, literature, selection of candidates, organising power. The events of January showed how great was the need of a change, but nothing has been done. It is high time that the rank and file of the Conservative party took the matter into their own last hands and compelled reform. It is intolerable that the energy and loyalty of the party should be nullified by muddling at headquarters. The first step should be the separation of the Chief Whip's Department from the Central Office, for there is no real connection between their duties. The second should be a different method of raising and administering funds. The third should be a drastic reorganisation of the Central Office and its local relations on business lines. A man who could drive the party machine on the same methods as a successful manufacturer conducts his own business would be cheap at the salary of a Cabinet Minister. Printed by William Blackwood and Sons. BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE. No. MCXLIV. FEBRUARY 1911. VOL. CLXXXIX. AVIATION IN 1910. BY T. F. FARMAN. WHETHER it be for the weal or woe of the human race, it is no longer doubtful the year 1910 will mark the commencement of a veritable revolution in the art of war. The aeroplane has entered the battlefield. It has already proved its utility as an instrument for scouting; and the heavy weight it can carry, even when required to extend its flight a very long distance without contact with the earth, indicates its capacity both as an offensive and defensive weapon. This application of the flying machine to military and even naval purposes is incontestably the most important fact in the history of aviation during the last twelve months. War in the air is no longer simply a subject for works of fiction, but a stern reality which humanity must face. The French War Minister, who at the end of 1909 showed by his VOL. CLXXXIX.-NO. MCXLIV. speeches in the Chamber that he vaguely foresaw that aerial craft heavier than air would perhaps one day supersede steerable balloons in war, took the initiative of making the first experiments, and they were so conclusive that both he and his colleague of the naval department have ordered a little fleet of the aerial craft, and at the same time instituted a competition for military aeroplanes capable of fulfilling the requirements of war more completely than those already in the possession of the French army and navy. The enumeration of the principal conditions of that military aeroplane competition will suffice to indicate the uses to which the aerial craft are destined to be put. The final test speaks volumes. The competing aeroplanes will have to make a cross L country flight of no less than 300 kilometres (186 miles) out and home to their startingpoint without contact with the earth, and carrying not only the necessary gasolene, oil, water for cooling the motor if necessary, &c., but an additional load of 300 kilogrammes (660 lb.), including the weight of three persons- the pilot, an assistant pilot, and a military observer. The Minister of War offers rich rewards for the accomplishment of this feat. He undertakes to give £4000 for the machine with which the flight may have been accomplished in the shortest time, and to lodge with its constructor an order for ten similar machines to be paid for at the rate of £1600 each. The constructors of the aeroplanes which may be classed second and third will obtain orders for six and four machines respectively at the same price of £1600 each. There is, however, a premium attached to all those orders. To secure any one of them the minimum speed of the aeroplane must not be less than 60 kilometres (37 miles) an hour, but, in the case of the speed being greater, to a maximum of 80 kilometres (50 miles) an hour, the constructor is to be awarded £20 per kilometre ( mile) of additional speed for each aeroplane ordered of him. In the case of only one flying apparatus fulfilling all the conditions of the competition, its constructor will receive the order for the whole batch of twenty aeroplanes. The final competition, to be held 1911, will be preceded in the month of October by preliminary elimination tests. Το have the right to participate in the final trial, the aerial craft must be provided with three seats, be capable of carrying 660 lb. in addition to the fuel, &c., for an uninterrupted flight of 186 miles, as stated above; be able to travel at an average speed of at least 37 miles an hour, and to land on, and start from, ploughed fields, ground covered with standing crops, such as lucerne, pastures, fields of stubble, &c., without the assistance of any one besides the persons manning the aerial craft. Moreover, the machine must be so built as to render it easy to take it to pieces and pack it for transport by rail or road, and it must not require any very minute precautions to put it together again for flight. Among the preliminary tests is also one of altitude flying. The machine must be able to rise in the air to the height of 500 metres 640 feet) within fifteen minutes. By this competition the French War Minister provides for the purchase of only twenty aeroplanes, but it is well known that his intention is to order hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of the successful aerial craft, but, of course, at a much more moderate price. The circumstances which led the French Minister to introduce the aeroplane into the army should not be overlooked. They were the exploits of the dur- officers who were trained to ing the month of November pilot the few aeroplanes of different types the French Government had purchased to experiment with. They were all the more remarkable because they were effected by men who had not previously occupied themselves with aerial locomotion. The first great achievement of the military aviators was the non-stop cross-country flight from Camp de Chalons to Vincennes effected on 9th June 1910 by Lieutenant Féquant, with Captain Marconnet beside him, on a Henry Farman biplane. The distance separating the two military camps is about 91 miles, and it was covered in 2 hours 20 minutes. By this feat the officers beat all the then existing records of cross-country flight, and the biplane which had transported two persons so great a distance had still on board when it reached its destination sufficient gasolene and lubricating oil for a farther flight of some 60 miles. It was Colonel Estienne who, with the approval of the War Minister, General Brun, ordered the young military pilots to attempt that aerial raid, but with little hope they would accomplish it without being obliged to descend to the ground on the way. The satisfaction of the Minister at the success of the enterprise was testified by the honours paid the heroes of the record flight. It was, however, nothing but the commencement of a long series of similar performances, many of which were executed by military officers who had but just obtained their aviation pilot's certificate. To partici pate with the War Minister's permission in certain competitions reserved for them at various aviation meetings, they flew from their respective camps to the aerodromes and astonished the spectators with their skill. It was when most of the still few military pilots were thus absent from their camps that Colonel Estienne suddenly sent them orders to return by the aerial highway to Paris or to towns in the east of France. The War Minister had decided to make a first trial of scouting by means of aeroplanes in connection with the cross-country raid organised by 'The Matin' for professional airmen, and consisting in flights on previously fixed days from Paris to Troyes, from Troyes to Nancy, from Nancy to Mezières, from Mezières to Douai, from Douai to Amiens, and from Amiens to Paris, making a total distance of about 485 miles. The military aviators, who arrived on their machines. from various places in the north of France, were instructed to scour the country in front of the professional men. A particular mission was given to each of them. In spite of the tempestuous weather which prevailed while Leblanc and Aubrun were accomplishing the aerial raid imposed on them by the Parisian journal, the military aviators, for the most part carrying a passenger on their machine, preceded and followed the racing men, and at the same time explored the country to the right and left of the indicated route. On reaching Nancy some of them extended themselves by mounting their their flight to the German respective machines in all frontier. Indeed General Man- weathers and in the teeth of noury, commander of the 20th very high wind. The truth Army Corps, was on board one was soon known. Before startof the aerial craft piloted by ing from Amiens they had been Lieutenant Féquant, at which supplied with defective oil for the German sentinels looked the lubrication of their motors, up with astonishment as it which were so seriously dampassed in the air almost over aged by it that they soon their heads. The frontier was refused to work, with the connot crossed, but the incident sequence that the aeroplanes gave rise to an outburst of came to the ground. At first chauvinism in France which it was believed the crime of for a moment threatened to wilful deterioration, entailing become dangerous. The Stras. imminent danger for the safety burg Post' published a violent of the military aviators, had article in which the hope was been committed, but the judicial expressed that if any French and military inquiries seemed aviator, military or civil, ven- to demonstrate that the prestured to fly over the fortifica- ence of sulphuric acid in the tions of Metz, the German oil was accidental. The persoldiers would bring him down formances of the military aviwith their rifles. ators had, however, been so remarkable that General Brun expressed his entire satisfaction. Not all the military aviators who had received orders to escort Leblanc and Aubrun during the last stage of their aerial voyage back to the French capital succeeded in doing so. Four aeroplanes should have accompanied the professional airmen from Amiens to Paris, but only one reached its destination. was a Farman biplane, piloted by Lieutenant Cammerman, with Lieutenant Vuillierme seated beside him as military observer. They had covered a considerably greater distance during The Matin' aerial raid than the professional men, each of whom was, however, alone on his Blériot monoplane. The absence of the three other aeroplanes was deeply regretted, because the officers piloting them had greatly distinguished That first attempt at military scouting with aeroplanes was only the prelude to a yet more convincing trial at the Grand Autumn Manoeuvres. The aerial fleet on that occasion consisted of four dirigibles It-the Colonel Renard, the Liberté, the Clement Bayard, and the Zodiac III.,-twelve aeroplanes, two Blériot monoplanes, two Antoinette monoplanes, five Henry Farman biplanes, one modified Wright biplane, one Bréguet biplane, and one Sommer biplane. It is needless to go into all the particulars of the services they rendered to the commanders of the two hostile armies in the mock warfare, especially as full publicity was given them at |