From Balloon to Boxkite

The story of Britain's pioneer military aviators. Involving such men as Col. S.F. Cody, cowboy and aviator, Malcolm Hall takes the story of British military aviation from the balloon age to the dawn of aviation before the First World War. The story of early British military aviation is one of trial and error, of triumph and adversity and it all begins with a detachment of the Royal Engineers called the Air Battalion, which had previously been called the Balloon School. Created some forty years before the RAF, the Balloon School began a long history of British aeronautics. Initially, spotting for artillery, the Balloon School grew to encompass kites and gliders and early aircraft o. This new history of this little-known army detachment presents the tale of these daring aviators and the balloons, airship, kites and pioneer aircraft during a time of much change in military design and thinking.