Origins
The use of the term "flight" to describe a collection of aircraft (typically four in the early days of aviation) dates back to around 1912. Winston Churchill claims to have invented the term while he was learning to fly with the Royal Navy's embryonic air service. It has also been suggested that the term was coined by technical sub-committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence which was examining the British air arrangements around the same time.
Read more about this topic: Flight (military Unit)
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“The origins of clothing are not practical. They are mystical and erotic. The primitive man in the wolf-pelt was not keeping dry; he was saying: “Look what I killed. Aren’t I the best?””
—Katharine Hamnett (b. 1948)
“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)