The aeroplane was successful; the flying boat was smashed during its trial flight. Another was put in hand, and was bought by the Admiralty. Aeroplane designing was in its experimental stage, so that no large orders were obtainable, and even where three of a kind were ordered, numerous alterations, demanded during the process of construction, prevented three of a kind from being built. These were the beginnings of the famous Sopwith machines, and especially of the single-seater biplane scout type, with its many varieties. The Sopwith 'Tabloid', the Sopwith 'Pup', the Sopwith 'Camel', and, last and best of all, the Sopwith 'Snipe', which was new at the front when the war ended--all these were engines of victory. So were the equally famous machines designed for the Government by Mr. de Havilland, of which the D.H. 4 is perhaps the greatest in achievement. Mr. de Havilland built his first machine early in 1910, at his own cost. On its trial it travelled some forty yards down a slope under its own power, then it rose too steeply into the air, and when it was corrected by Mr. de Havilland, who piloted it, the strain proved too great for the struts, which were made of American whitewood; the left main plane doubled up, and the machine, falling heavily to the ground thirty-five yards from its starting-point, was totally wrecked. The great things of the air have most of them been done by survivors from wrecks. Mr. de Havilland went to work again on a much improved machine, designed to be an army biplane; in December 1910 he became a member of the staff of the balloon factory at Farnborough, and had a main hand, as shall be told hereafter, in the best of the Government aeroplane designs.