THE MASTERY OFTHE AIR

by WILLIAM J. CLAXTON

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PREFACE

This book makes no pretence of going minutely into the technical and scientificsides of human flight: rather does it deal mainly with the real achievements of pio-neers who have helped to make aviation what it is to-day.My chief object has been to arouse among my readers an intelligent interest in theart of flight, and, profiting by friendly criticism of several of my former works, I im-agine that this is best obtained by setting forth the romance of triumph in therealms of an element which has defied man for untold centuries, rather than to givea mass of scientific principles which appeal to no one but the expert.So rapid is the present development of aviation that it is difficult to keep abreastwith the times. What is new to-day becomes old to-morrow. The Great War hasgiven a tremendous impetus to the strife between the warring nations for the mas-tery of the air, and one can but give a rough and general impression of the achieve-ments of naval and military airmen on the various fronts.Finally, I have tried to bring home the fact that the fascinating progress of aviationshould not be confined entirely to the airman and constructor of air-craft; in short,this progress is not a record of events in which the mass of the nation have littlepersonal concern, but of a movement in which each one of us may take an activeand intelligent part.I have to thank various aviation firms, airmen, and others who have kindly come tomy assistance, either with the help of valuable information or by the loan of photo-graphs. In particular, my thanks are due to the Royal Flying Corps and Royal NavalAir Service for permission to reproduce illustrations from their two publications onthe work and training of their respective corps; to the Aeronautical Society of GreatBritain; to Messrs. C. G. Spencer & Sons, Highbury; The Sopwith Aviation Company,Ltd.; Messrs. A. V. Roe & Co., Ltd.; The Gnome Engine Company; The Green EngineCompany; Mr. A. G. Gross (Geographia, Ltd.); and M. Bleriot; for an exposition of the internal-combustion engine I have drawn on Mr. Horne's The Age of Machinery.

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FOREWORD

`The Mastery of the Air’ represents just one of millions of works in the public domain,upon reading this book it was immediately evident that I must give to our children and tocountless others, the knowledge of a time which has long since been relegated to a dustyshelf somewhere never to be gleaned again, until now, in the hope that we can help themto understand the motivation that led to humankind emulating the birds by taking to thesky.This book is a record of the people and events that conquered a new frontier with thepassion and creativity of man’s desire to go where previously we could only dream of.William J. Claxton has given us a look into his world with this book, at the time of writingthe Aviation Industry is still being created. Experimental is the keyword, and many of these pioneers gave their lives in the pursuit of a dream, a dream to one day be realized.There are many people today that do not even know what sacrifices were made by thebrave people that took to the sky in order for us to be able to just break free from thesurface of the planet and defy gravity or travel to those far away destinations in a rela-tively short time compared to the long tedious treks of the period by land and sea. Thisbook tells the story of those remarkable people and how they looked toward the future.I am making this book available to the world “Free of Charge” as it is so important to thehistory of Aviation and the history of humankind. As long as this book remains un-changed, you are allowed to freely distribute it to anyone you like.- Craig A. BakPublisher

To DeborahPlease feel free to copy this eBook and distribute it to the people you know, theywill thank you for it!