We developed new airplane cameras. We carried to new stages the science of clothing aviators. We developed in quantity the wireless airplane telephone that stilled in the ears of the pilot the bedlam of wind and machine guns and engine exhaust and placed him within easy speaking radius of his ground station and his commander in the air. We built balloons at a rate to supply more than our own needs. When the shortage of linen threatened the entire airplane output of the nations opposing Germany, we developed cotton wing fabric that not only substituted for linen, but proved to be better; and in producing a liquid filler to make this fabric wind-tight we established on a large scale an entirely new chemical industry in the United States. Such were the high points in the history of America's aircraft production for war. The details of the developments which led to these results are set forth on the following pages. [Illustration: VIEW OF AIRPLANE IN FLIGHT TAKEN FROM ANOTHER MACHINE.] [Illustration: PARACHUTE JUMP FROM AN ALTITUDE OF 7,900 FEET, NOVEMBER 12, 1918. Picture taken at Love Field, Tex., from an airplane.] CHAPTER II. AIRPLANE PRODUCTION. Sketchy and incomplete as was our knowledge of airplane construction in the early days of 1917, it was no more hazy than our notion of how many planes to build. What would constitute overwhelming superiority in the air? As an indication of the rapidity with which history has moved, it may be stated that in January and February of 1917 the Signal Corps discussed the feasibility of building 1,000 planes in a year of construction. This seems now to us a ridiculously low figure to propose as representative of American resources, but in the early weeks of 1917 the construction of a thousand airplanes appeared to be a formidable undertaking. In March, when war was inevitable, we raised this number to 2,500 planes within 12 months; in April, when war was declared, we raised it again to 3,700. But once we were in the war, through the exchange of military missions our designers were taken into the confidence of the aviation branches of the French, British, and Italian Armies and shown then for the first time a comprehensive view of the development of the war plane, both what had been done in the past and what might be expected in the future. As a result our Joint Army and Navy Technical Board in the last week of May and the early part of June, 1917, recommended to the Secretaries of War and the Navy that a building program be started at once to produce the stupendous total of 19,775 planes for our own use and 3,000 additional ones, if we were to train foreign aviators, or approximately 22,000 in all. This was a program worthy of America's industrial greatness. Of these proposed planes, 7,050 were for training our flyers, 725 for the defense of the United States and insular possessions, and 12,000 for active service in France.