The Brother of Lanoe Hawker VC DSO RFC wrote this fascinating book as a Tribuite to his 'Best Friend' who failed to survive the 'Great War'.The Hawker Family came from a distinguished sporting family with both strong military and naval members in their Family Histories, with the Hawker Family Archive recording that young Lanoe from his youngest years had always set his sights on flying for the recently formed British Army Air Unit known as the Royal Flying Core or RFC. After Completing his RFC Pilot Training at the Central Flying School he flew his aircraft over the English Channel and became operational in the skies above France and Belgium from October 1914. He was posted and went to war as a member of the newly formed 6 RFC Squadron which was equipped with BE2s and Henri Farmans aircraft types. As the war in the air progressed and became increasingly much more violent and savage, so Hawker came more and more into his own both as a&nbsp; burgeoning Combat Pilot of great ability and in time as he was promoted to a highly respected commander of a RFC Squadron.&nbsp;He was rapidly promoted, Posted and made the new Commander of 24 RFC Squadron and He, like other pilots in the squadron, flew numerous different types of Airframes such as the Bristol Scout, FE4227 and the now famous DH 2s. 
This book contains many long lost original Air combat reports from his earliest flights and also reports he wrote about the pilots that he commanded and of their wartime Bombing and Reconisance Flights during his tragically short but highly eventful period as a frontline pilot before being killed in action in 1916, as the air war and airborne technology firmly swung into the Germans favour. As such some of the reports can make for extremely graphic and detailed reading.&nbsp;The relative merits, qualities and characteristics of the aircraft both British, French and German are discussed in detail along with the pilots’ opinions of the more superior German Aircraft and Tatics that they faced which those of higher rank later demanded be rewritten due to their negative effect on morale.For a better insight into early combat based air operations, Hawker VC – The First RFC Ace, is unlikely to be surpassed, thanks to the extensive use of such long unavailable first-hand accounts.&nbsp;Casualty/death rates were beyond appalling, as they were in the Trenches below, but this special band of brothers flew on regardless until their own inevitable turn came and they themselves fell to an enemies gunfire.Illustrated.Highly Recommended.

Hawker VC (The First RFC Ace - The Life Of Maj Lanoe Hawker VC DSO RFC 1890 - 1916) PDF

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