The First Years Of Conquest
It is no derogation of the work accomplished by the Wright Brothers to say that they won the honour of the first power-propelled flights in a heavier-than-air machine only by a short period. In Europe, and especially in France, independent experiment was being conducted by Ferber, by Santos-Dumont, and others, while in England Cody was not far behind the other giants of those days. The history of the early years of controlled power flights is a tangle of half-records; there were no chroniclers, only workers, and much of what was done goes unrecorded perforce, since it was not set down at the time.

Before passing to survey of those early years, let it be set down that in 1907, when the Wright Brothers had proved the practicability of their machines, negotiations were entered into between the brothers and the British War office. On April 12th 1907, the apostle of military stagnation, Haldane, then War Minister, put an end to the negotiations by declaring that 'the War office is not disposed to enter into relations at present with any manufacturer of aeroplanes' The state of the British air service in 1914 at the outbreak of hostilities, is eloquent regarding the pursuance of the policy which Haldane initiated.