Otto Linnekogel on July 9 climbed to 21,654 feet, breaking Roland Garros’s record of 19,032; on July 14 Heinrich Oelrich reached 26,246 feet; and Reinhold Boehm flew for twenty-four hours and two minutes without stopping his engine! Those who realize how much time, money, and energy have been expended by this country during the time we were in the war in getting quantity production of aeroplanes and aeromotors will appreciate what it meant to Germany in July, 1914, when she declared war on the world, to have all her experimentation done and her aeronautical factories tuned up and nearly a thousand standardized planes equipped with standardized Benz, Mercedes, and Maybach motors while England had barely 250 planes of almost as many different types, and France was in a similar condition with about 300 aeroplanes and engines! With command of the land and the air Germany felt she could neutralize or overcome Britain’s command of the sea by overrunning France, seizing the Channel ports, and by flying over the British fleet land an army in England and conquer the “tight little isle.” Indeed, for three years after the first battle of the Marne the fear of just such a contingency compelled England to keep a large standing army at home while Germany with her Zeppelins and aeroplanes, even from distant Belgium, terrorized Scotland and England with almost daily bombing air raids. But as soon as the war broke out the governments of the world began to appreciate what could be accomplished by these little toys of sportsmen, and to realize that the side which built and equipped the largest and fastest fleet of scouts and fighters could put out the eyes of his opponent and win the gigantic struggle; for an army or a navy cannot feel its way forward like a worm without being destroyed! This precipitated an enormous economic and manufacturing race to make enough aircraft and to train enough skilful aviators to drive the enemy from the air and get control of the third dimension. The fighting and bombing possibilities of the aeroplane were not then fully appreciated; that came afterward. Consequently the two objectives first sought in the actual designing and building of the aeroplanes were manœuvring ability and speed, and later bombing capacity. Inherent stability and sufficient factors of safety, the two chief considerations in peace construction of aircraft, were only secondary or entirely neglected.