The Outbreak of war in August 1914 naturally gave a fillip to the development of aeronautics and to building up research teams at the NPL and at the Royal Aircraft Factory at Farnborough. I was one of the earlier war-time recruits, in September 1914, engaged—after a mere assurance that I did believe in aeroplanes—by the enthusiast E. T. Busk, who was to lose his life so tragically when the BE2c he was flying caught fire on the 5th November 1914. At Farnborough I found a Cambridge contemporary of the Mechanical Sciences Tripos 1914, H. L. Stevens, who had joined before the outbreak of war, R. H. Mayo, Geoffrey Taylor, Melvill Jones, who had abandoned work on airships for Vickers, and F. M. Green from the motor trade on engines.