Status Updates From Winged Warfare

Suddenly, from somewhere out of the storm, appeared a trim little aeroplane. It landed hesitatingly in a near-by field as if scorning to brush its wings against so sordid a landscape; then away again up into the clean grey mists.

[seeing this, as he stood mired in the thick mud, the author decided then and there to transfer from the cavalry to the Royal Flying Corps]

I like reading about the early biplanes and triplanes & to do that you cannot avoid WW1. This memoir moves rapidly & talks a lot about the early flying experience. Think: Kitty Hawk was 1903 and by 1914! They saw themselves as knight errants, shooting down machines, not men, challenging pilots to come up and joust, risking their necks to fly over an enemy airfield to drop a bouquet in honor of a fallen foe.