Several officers joined during the winter, and the squadron began to be better supplied with machines. For the manoeuvres of 1913 it was made up to war strength both in aeroplanes and transport. These manoeuvres, however, did not give much opportunity to aeroplanes; the idea was that four divisions, and with them No. 3 Squadron, should operate against a skeleton army. The squadron had next to nothing to observe; the other side had plenty to observe, but could not get full value out of their skeleton force. The tactics of the air had hardly reached the point at which a theoretic trial of this kind might have been of value. Yet a good deal was learnt by the Flying Corps from these manoeuvres. Major Brooke-Popham drew up a very full report on them, and in the following winter Lieutenant Barrington-Kennett, under the title 'What I learnt on Manoeuvres, 1913', brought together the information he had obtained as adjutant from the talk and written statements of those who took part in them. Both reports show a relentless attention to detail, and an unfailing imagination for the realities of war. The squadron had twelve machines at work during the manoeuvres. Of these one was wrecked. Two had to be brought home by road, one for lack of spare parts, the other because it had been taken over with a damaged engine--both avoidable accidents. The one wrecked machine, Major Brooke-Popham remarks, does not represent the loss that would have occurred on a campaign. Four machines had to land, and would have been captured in war. That is to say, the loss amounted, to five machines in four days, or one-tenth of the force every day. One of the lessons learnt at the manoeuvres was that accurate observations could be made from a height of at least six thousand feet. This was one of those many things which, having been habitually ridiculed by theorists, are at once established by those who make the experiment. So high flying came into fashion, and brought with it a new set of problems concerning the effect of atmospheric height on the human body and on the aeroplane engine.