To pilot these thirty-two aeroplanes, there were, at this time, thirty-four fully-qualified military airmen.
The activity which prevailed, at the end of 1910, among the aeroplane manufacturers in France, is revealed in the report of one well-known maker, Mr Henry Farman.
He stated, on 6th December, 1910, that he had received orders for military machines as follows:—
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── French Government 35 aeroplanes ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Russian " 20 " ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Spanish " 3 " ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Italian " 2 " ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Belgian " 1 " ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Japanese " 1 " ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── British " 1 " ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
The commanding position of France, in this one list, as compared with the single order of Great Britain, forms an illustration of the attitude of the two countries, at this time, towards military airmanship.
At M. Blériot’s flying school at Pau, early in February, 1911, the French Government had more than twenty officers learning to become airmen. No more striking indication could be found of the determination of this country to be in the forefront in aviation.
Early in the summer of 1911, the French War Minister authorised the purchase of close upon a hundred and fifty aeroplanes. Of these machines nearly a hundred were, at this time, actually in the possession of the military authorities. Among the orders placed with French manufacturers was one for eighty monoplanes. This was secured by M. Louis Blériot. Two types of machine were resented in this large commission, one being a two-seated machine, and the other a single-seated craft, capable of high speed.
To Mr Henry Farman, whose biplane had performed so meritoriously in the 1910 Picardy manœuvres, an order was placed for forty war machines; and the French Government’s large order was made up of a number of other machines.
With her energetic method of sending officers in squads to learn flying at the various schools, it was not long before France found herself in possession of a corps of at least a hundred fully-qualified airmen. These, as a matter of fact, she possessed quite early in the summer of 1911.
The business-like way in which she set herself the task of becoming the premier nation in the development of flying was especially notable at this time. Military commissions were appointed to visit the various aerodromes throughout France, and inspect all aeroplanes built. In the case where a machine had been purchased, one of these military commissions came to the flying ground on a specified date, and passed the aircraft through a series of tests, These experiments had to be carried out by the constructor of the aeroplane before the Government would take delivery of his machine.