The War in the Air (Penguin Classics)

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A remarkably progressive book, but then Wells did like his politics. His constant observation that Europeans are no more civilized than the other races of man, and no less prone to violent, dominant, cruel behavior is refreshing amongst the variety of Victorian sci fi and adventure stories I've been taking in. However, it is rather disappointing that these comments and insights are rarely tied into the warp and woof of the narrative, but are added on as little observational essays in the voice of the abstracted narrator. It would have been much more effective if he'd found a way to demonstrate these ideas in his story--otherwise, what's the point of writing a bit of fiction in the first place when he could easily have made it into a tract? Machine guns tended to be large and heavy, however, and only a few were small and light enough to be practicable for use on an airplane. Another problem was that firing sideways seriously decreased accuracy, while firing forward meant that the airplane’s propeller would be in the way. The problem was not solved until mid-1915, when a Dutch aircraft designer named Anton Fokker developed the “interrupter gear,” a timing mechanism that synchronised the machine gun with the moving propeller blades. Of course it was a great honour to be in the troop of Richthofen and it was very interesting the first air fight. We were on the French front in the near of Valenciennes and we had air fights with French, Canadian and British air force. One day, we were together with six pilots and four of them shot down ten French and English. And Richthofen alone shot of them four in one day. mechanics were trained in the difficult art of keeping aircraft in the air and fixing them when they came down too hard. Did you know?

At that point, the novel begins to unravel. Wells has a tendency to create these fantastic concepts that fizzle at the end. It's like he can't sustain the momentum. The War in the Air is no different. The final third of the novel drags on and then ends rather abruptly, with Bert's final years being summarized haphazardly. Bert transforms into some type of post-apocalyptic warrior -- the details are fuzzy, but thankfully so, since such a transformation is so out-of-character as to be ridiculous. As much as I get frustrated by H.G. Wells and like to criticize his work, I can't help but recognize his genius. "The War In The Air" is one of his novels that I honestly can find very little to fault, and I believe stands as one of his best sci-fi novels. Many were eager to join this exciting new service. But not all were immediately successful, such as Arthur Harris – who went on to command the British strategic bombing offensive in the Second World War.The first three chapters of The War in the Air expound on details of the life of the novel's hero Bert Smallways and his extended family. They reside in a location called Bun Hill, a fictional, former Kentish village that had become a London suburb. Burning. Howitzers open fire on us. Artillery moving through village of Ors. Several motor-cars moving One biographer has called The War in the Air "an extraordinary concoction—as if H.G. had shaken up Kipps and The War of the Worlds and poured out a new story that would appeal both to those who liked his social comedies and those who had been impressed by his early fantasies of terror." [11] Beatrice Webb annoyed Wells by preferring The War in the Air to Tono-Bungay, which Wells regarded as his masterpiece. [12] Influence [ edit ] In the air, as on land, Russia had an immense superiority of strength. Finland had probably less than 100 first-line planes; her total strength in serviceable aircraft can hardly have exceeded 150. What Russia's first-line strength was is uncertain, but it was undoubtedly immense. The estimate of "Max Werner," [ii] 10,000 to 12,000 first-line aircraft, was certainly excessive; that of M. Laurent Eynac,[iii] 3000 aircraft, was probably too low. M. Pierre Cot placed the figure at 4500-5000 machines, and General Sikorski at 5000, with an equal number in reserve.[iv] The figure of 4200 to 4500 was suggested in 1938 in a French publication[v] and was probably not far wrong. In the fighting in the Karelian Isthmus on February 15, 1940, more than 500 machines were reported to have been in the air, and on a later day in February at least 1000 were flying in all the Finnish theatre. By 1917, the blueprint for aerial operations on the Western Front was firmly established. After the end of the Battle of the Somme in October 1916 there was little activity during the severe winter that followed. The German retreat to the defensive Hindenburg Line during February-March made continued aerial reconnaissance by the Allies vital.

Throughout 1914, there were hundreds of thousands of casualties in the Allied and German forces, with rapid-firing rifles, machine guns, and artillery eventually driving both sides to dig into the ground. Elaborate trenches soon stretched from Switzerland Once the Germans had been stopped on the Marne and static trench warfare developed, the role of aircraft changed. The RFC was dispersed along the ever-lengthening front lines that were developing in Flanders. Knowledge of the German trench systems and what lay behind them was vital. Initially, observers (sitting in the second seat of the aeroplane) made sketches and took notes, but as the network of trenches developed, recording such complex positions this way became impossible. Aerial photography gradually took over as the recording method, using techniques experimented with before the war.to the skies in force. In March alone, MacLaren had 13 victories to his credit; by the end of May, his count had risen to 32. By the end of the war, MacLaren had downed 54 enemy aircraft and was tied for sixth among Allied aces of the war and third among At about 10,000 feet, flyers also had to deal with oxygen deprivation (hypoxia), which could leave them slow to react to threats. Smash! came a vast explosion in the forward part of the flagship, and a huge piece of metalwork seemed to lift out of her and dump itself into the sea, dropping men and leaving a gap into which a prompt Drachenflieger planted a flaring bomb. And then for an instant Bert perceived only too clearly in the growing, pitiless light a number of minute, convulsively active animalculae scorched and struggling in the Theodore Roosevelt's foaming wake. What were they? Not men - surely not men? Those drowning, mangled little creatures tore with their clutching fingers at Bert's soul." To meet the demands overseas for more pilots, new training schools were established in Canada. The private Curtiss school in Toronto, which opened in 1915, graduated 129 pilots. A