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On October the 12th, 1897, the first trials of this 'Avion' were made in the presence of General Mensier, who admitted that the machine made several hops above the ground, but did not consider the performance as one of actual flight.
Before I could make up my mind, the door opened and the landlord appeared, apologizing for the raid as if it had been an accident of his kitchen. We must have no fear. All danger was over. The avion only one! had been chased out of our neighbourhood. The noise we heard now was merely shrapnel fired by anti-aircraft guns. We would not be disturbed again, that he'd guarantee from his experience!
The method of training a pilot for a small, fast avion de chasse, as a fighting airplane is termed, is quite different, and as it is the most thorough and interesting I will take that course up in greater detail. The man who trains for one of these machines never has the advantage of going first into the air in a double-control airplane.
Ader may or may not have left the ground, but the wreckage of his 'Avion' at the end of his experiment places his doubtful success in a different category from that of the brothers Wright and leaves them the first definite conquerors, just as Bleriot ranks as first definite conqueror of the English Channel by air.
The most interesting paper of all was our Ordre de Service, the text of which was as follows: It is commanded that the bearer of this Order report himself at the cities of C and R , by the route of the air, flying an avion Caudron, and leaving the École Militaire d'Aviation at A on the 21st of April, 1917, without passenger on board. Signed, LE CAPITAINE B Commandant de l'École.
"When you have been on patrol a long way behind the enemy lines, shooting up towns and camps and railway trains like a pack of aerial cowboys; when, on your way home, you have deliberately disobeyed orders and loafed a long way behind the other members of your group in order to watch the pretty sunset, and, as a punishment for this æsthetic indulgence, have been overtaken by darkness and compelled to land in strange country, only to have your machine immediately surrounded by German soldiers; then, having taken the desperate resolve that they shall not have possession of your old battle-scarred avion as well as of your person, when you are about to touch a match to it, if the light glistens on a long French bayonet and you learn that the German soldiers have been prisoners since the battle of the Somme, and have just finished their day's work at harvesting beets to be used in making sugar for French poilus Oh, BOY! Ain't it a GRAND AND GLORYUS FEELING?"
Here the sturdy men from overseas were unable to gain their objectives, but at other points they gained valuable ground. In the following night, during a heavy rainstorm, the British attacked a number of the southwesterly suburbs of Lens, including the one known as Avion. They won all their first objectives, and captured over 200 prisoners.
Sailing about high above a busy flock of them makes one feel like an old mother hen protecting her chicks. The pilot of an avion de chasse must not concern himself with the ground, which to him is useful only for learning his whereabouts.
Telephones are busy from the moment the lines are crossed, and a hostile patrol, to say nothing of a lone avion, will be fortunate if it returns safely. But infantrymen are to be forgiven readily for their outbursts against the aviation service. They have far more than their share of danger and death while in the trenches.
Farther to the left, we recognized Farman biplanes, floating battleships in comparison with the Blériots, and twin-motor Caudrons, much more graceful and alert of movement. But, most wonderful of all to us then, we saw a strange, new avion, a biplane, small, trim, with a body like a fish.
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