In the beginning…
The Royal Engineers had been interested in aeronautics since the earliest days of flying. A Balloon School was started at Chatham in 1888, following the Sudan campaign. In 1890 a regular balloon section was formed at Aldershot and in 1892 the School of Ballooning and the Balloon Factory were set up on the Basingstoke Canal near Laffans Plain, a place mentioned in the Corps song.
In 1900 three sections were used for artillery observation at Ladysmith, Mafeking and Kimberly in the Boer War. In India, the Bengal Sappers and Miners had a section where an elephant was used as the holdfast.
In 1907, Lt. Col. J. E. Capper R.E. who commanded the Balloon Factory, flew from Farnborough to the Crystal Palace and round St. Paul’s Cathedral in Nulli Secundus, one of the three non-rigid airships he had helped to develop. He also visited the Wright brothers in America in his search for a suitable power-driven military aircraft, but unfortunately he could not get any support from the Government.
In 1910, another R.E. officer, Lt. R. A. Cammel made the first official military flight in a Bleriot. The next year saw the first military use of ground to air wireless, when a signal unit of the Royal Engineers sent a message to an airship thirty miles away. In 1911 the Balloon School was reorganized as the Air Battalion of the Royal Engineers, commanded by Major Sir Alexander Bannerman. Then on the 12May 1912 it was renamed the Royal Flying Corps. This ultimately became the Royal Air Force and the Fleet Air Arm.
Nevertheless, by the time the war started, a lot of the personnel were former R.E. and many Royal Engineer officers subsequently trained as pilots and joined the RFC. In fact, one of Vincent’s officers left the company to commence flight school.