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Space forbids that I should enter into the achievements of the early French aviators, among whom the names of Ferber, Bleriot and Farman will always rank high in the story of human faith, courage and determination. It is a record of rapid advance. Farman made a circuit flight of 1 kilometre in 1908, and flew from Chalons to Rheims, a distance of 27 kilometres, in twenty minutes.
It was in August that a new world's height record of 11,152 feet was set up by Captain Felix at Etampes, while on the 7th of the month Renaux flew nearly 600 miles on a Maurice Farman machine in 12 hours. Cody and Valentine were keeping interest alive in the Circuit of Britain race, although this had long been won, by determinedly plodding on at finishing the course.
The total weight, including Farman as pilot, is given as 1,540 lbs., so that the machine was much heavier than either of the others; the weight per horse-power being midway between the Santos-Dumont and the Wright at 31 lbs. per square foot, while the wing loading was considerably greater than either at 3 1/2 lbs. per square foot.
"I'm wondering if Percy will ever have the chance to handle his Farman biplane again," Andy went on to remark. "He seemed to set a great store by it to offer such a nice fat reward for its return. And it's so brand new that he hasn't had much of a chance to try it out. Wasn't he mad, though, when he came racing along in that car looking for Chief Waller. He looked as red as a turkey gobbler.
On the outbreak of war, and until the end of 1914, of the ten types in use Avro, B.E., Bristol, Sopwith, Vickers, M. Farman, H. Farman, Caudron, Morane, and Voisin five were British and five were French and all were fitted with French engines. The average horse-power was still about 83, but the average maximum speed had risen to 74, and the minimum had fallen to 41 miles per hour.
The bombardment squadrons are made up of slow machines with great carrying capacity, such as the Voisin; the pursuit or battle squadrons the escadrilles de chasse are composed of small and very fast 'planes, such as the Spad and Nieuport; while the general utility squadrons, used for reconnoissance, artillery regulation, and photographing, usually consist of medium-speed, two-passenger machines like the Farman and the Caudron.
At the outbreak of war the most successful machines possessed by the Military Wing were the B.E.2 tractor with a 70 horse-power Renault engine, a speed of 73 miles an hour, and a climb of 3,000 feet in nine minutes; and a Henri Farman pusher with a speed of 60 miles an hour, and a climb of 3,000 feet in fourteen minutes.
Thereupon he set about building his eleventh machine, with which he was to achieve the first flight across the English channel. Henry Farman, to whom reference has already been made, was engaged with his two brothers, Maurice and Richard, in the motor-car business, and turned to active interest in flying in 1907, when the Voisin firm built his first biplane on the box-kite principle.
The Maurice Farman and Caudron airplanes were used for observation. The Voisin machines, strong but slower, were more especially utilized for bombardments, which began to be carried out by organized expeditions. The famous raids on the Ludwigshafen factories and the Karlsruhe railway station occurred in June, 1915.
This applies especially to those tactics, where the field artillery dashes up to a position, discharges a number of rounds in rapid succession, or indulges in rafale firing, and then limbering up, rushes away before the enemy can reply. As is well known the Farman biplanes possess high endurance qualities. They can remain aloft for many hours at a stretch and are remarkably reliable.
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