RFC Service
His posting to the sixth course of instruction at the RFC's Central Flying School at Upavon Wiltshire came in May, 1914. There he was retrained to fly B.E.2b and B.E.8 military aircraft. On 20 June he took part in a Hendon-Birmingham-Manchester and return air race at the controls of an 80 hp (60 kW) Gnome powered Bleriot monoplane, being first to arrive at Trafford Park Aerodrome (Manchester), where the Lord Mayor of Manchester greeted him. To reach Strange's hand, the man stood on a bracing wire to the landing gear, damaging it. On take-off to return south, the wire snapped, smashing the Bleriot's propellor and the machine was damaged, putting him out of the race.
Strange was formally commissioned as a second-lieutenant in The Dorsetshire Regiment on 30 July 1914 and, still on his flying course, remained on attachment to the Royal Flying Corps. In August 1914 he was despatched to join his first operational unit, No.5 Squadron RFC, based at Gosport Hants. On 15/16 August - despite severe weather and a damaged longeron - he flew his Farman aircraft via Dover and over the English Channel to Amiens and then to the unit's new base at Maubeuge France, being the last of the Squadron to arrive.
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