Robert Brooke-Popham - Military Aviation Before World War I

Military Aviation Before World War I

Brooke-Popham was attached to Air Battalion Royal Engineers during its manoeuvres of 1911, after which he decided to learn to fly. He attended the flying school at Brooklands and gained Royal Aero Club certificate number 108 in July 1911. He returned to his regiment, the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, on 28 February 1912. However, in early 1912 he transferred to the Air Battalion, taking up duties as a pilot in March. The next month, Brooke-Popham was appointed Officer Commanding of the Battalion's Aeroplane Company.

With the creation of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) from the Air Battalion on 13 May 1912, Brooke-Popham was transferred to the RFC. He was appointed the first Officer Commanding of No. 3 Squadron In a letter to the Editor of 'Flight' magazine, dated 23rd January 1949, he wrote, "I see from an old log book that though I was seconded to the Air Battalion at the end of March 1912, it was not till the 6th May that I flew to Larkhill to take over command of No.2 (Aeroplane) Co." No. 3 Squadron was the successor unit to the Air Battalion's No.2 (Aeroplane) Company which had been stationed at Larkhill, on Salisbury Plain, since it's creation in April 1911 and thus became the oldest British, Empire or Commonwealth independent Military unit to operate heavier-than-air machines.