This view is far less fantastic than the whirlwind development of war-flying witnessed by all of us since 1914. Indeed, to anybody with a little imagination and some knowledge of what is in preparation among the designers and inventors of various countries, that statement would seem more self-evident than extreme. Even the average spectator of aeronautical advance in the past three years must see that if anything like the same rate of growth be maintained, by the end of 1918 aircraft numbered in tens of thousands and with extraordinary capacities for speed, climb, and attack will make life a burden to ground troops, compromise lines of communication, cause repeated havoc to factories and strongholds, and promote loss of balance among whatever civilian populations come within range of their activity. To emphasise the startling nature of aeronautical expansion--past, present, and future--let us trace briefly the progress of the British Flying Corps from pre-war conditions to their present state of high efficiency. When the Haldane-Asquith brotherhood were caught napping, the Flying Corps possessed a seventy odd (very odd) aeroplanes, engined by the unreliable Gnome and the low-powered Renault. Fortunately it also possessed some very able officers, and these succeeded at the outset in making good use of doubtful material. One result of the necessary reconstruction was that a large section of the original corps seceded to the Navy and the remainder came under direct control of the Army. The Royal Naval Air Service began to specialise in bomb raids, while the Royal Flying Corps (Military Wing) sent whatever machines it could lay hands on to join the old contemptibles in France. Both services proceeded to increase in size and importance at break-neck speed.