Evolution of Air Power
Evolution of Air Power
The Beginning
The use of the expression ‘air power’ was first recorded in H.G. Wells’ novel ‘The War in the Air’ in 1908.1 However, according to Professor Tony Mason the official birthday of air power has arbitrarily been selected as 1893, when a Major Fullerton of the British Army had presented a paper to a meeting of army engineers in Chicago in which he prophesied that the impact of aeronautics foreshadowed ‘as great a revolution in the art of war as the discovery of gun power’, that ‘future wars may well start with a great air battle’, that ‘the arrival over the enemy capital will probably conclude the campaign’ and that, ‘command of the air would be an essential prerequisite for all land and air warfare.’2 This date has been selected in preference to 1803 when the first airship company was formed in France; or 1883 when Albert Robida envisaged a sudden crushing air strike in his War of the Twentieth Century,3 or 1903 that marked the first heavier than air machine flight by the Wright Brothers.
While the 19th century may well be credited with the conceptual visualization of air power, it was the epic heavier than air machine flight by the Wright Brothers in 1903, which was the first concrete step in the fulfilment of the vision. By 1909, aircraft had been inducted in military service. The first official record of the use of aircraft in actual combat was made in 1911 by the Italians in the Libyan campaign when Captain Moizo and De Rada flying in a military bi-plane Forman spotted an Arab encampment and proceeded to drop hand carried bombs on them.
Britain was amongst the pioneers in developing its air power. Royal Flying Corps with its military and naval wings was established in 1912. Inter-Service rivalry soon surfaced and by 1914, despite opposition by Churchill, Royal Navy unilaterally broke away from RFC and established its own Royal Naval Air Service, under the direct control of the British admiralty. At the outbreak of WWI,
The Beginning
The use of the expression ‘air power’ was first recorded in H.G. Wells’ novel ‘The War in the Air’ in 1908.1 However, according to Professor Tony Mason the official birthday of air power has arbitrarily been selected as 1893, when a Major Fullerton of the British Army had presented a paper to a meeting of army engineers in Chicago in which he prophesied that the impact of aeronautics foreshadowed ‘as great a revolution in the art of war as the discovery of gun power’, that ‘future wars may well start with a great air battle’, that ‘the arrival over the enemy capital will probably conclude the campaign’ and that, ‘command of the air would be an essential prerequisite for all land and air warfare.’2 This date has been selected in preference to 1803 when the first airship company was formed in France; or 1883 when Albert Robida envisaged a sudden crushing air strike in his War of the Twentieth Century,3 or 1903 that marked the first heavier than air machine flight by the Wright Brothers.
While the 19th century may well be credited with the conceptual visualization of air power, it was the epic heavier than air machine flight by the Wright Brothers in 1903, which was the first concrete step in the fulfilment of the vision. By 1909, aircraft had been inducted in military service. The first official record of the use of aircraft in actual combat was made in 1911 by the Italians in the Libyan campaign when Captain Moizo and De Rada flying in a military bi-plane Forman spotted an Arab encampment and proceeded to drop hand carried bombs on them.
Britain was amongst the pioneers in developing its air power. Royal Flying Corps with its military and naval wings was established in 1912. Inter-Service rivalry soon surfaced and by 1914, despite opposition by Churchill, Royal Navy unilaterally broke away from RFC and established its own Royal Naval Air Service, under the direct control of the British admiralty. At the outbreak of WWI,