efficiency, far greater interest being displayed in the amount
of weight borne per unit area of wing.

An idea of the state of development arrived at about this time
may be gained from the fact that the Commandant of the Military
Wing of the Royal Flying Corps in a lecture before the Royal
Aeronautical Society read in February, 1913, asked for
single-seater scout aeroplanes with a speed of 90 miles an hour
and a landing speed of 45 miles an hour--a performance which
even two years later would have been considered modest in the
extreme. It serves to show that, although higher performances
were put up by individual machines on occasion, the general
development had not yet reached the stage when such performances
could be obtained in machines suitable for military purposes.
So far as seaplanes were concerned, up to the beginning of 1913
little attempt had been made to study the novel problems
involved, and the bulk of the machines at the Monaco Meeting in
April, 1913, for instance, consisted of land machines fitted with
floats, in many cases of a most primitive nature, without other
alterations. Most of those which succeeded in leaving the water
did so through sheer pull of engine power; while practically all
were incapable of getting off except in a fair sea, which enabled
the pilot to jump the machine into the air across the trough
between two waves. Stability problems had not yet been
considered, and in only one or two cases was fin area added at
the rear high up, to counterbalance the effect of the floats low
down in front. Both twin and single-float machines were used,
while the flying boat was only just beginning to come into being
from the workshops of Sopwith in Great Britain, Borel-Denhaut in
France, and Curtiss in America. In view of the approaching