Wireless in the Air, 1912 (The Communicator, Vol 16 No 3, 1962, cited in ‘Signal: A History of Signalling in the Royal Navy’, Captain Barrie Kent)
Vice Admiral Sir Raymond Fitzmaurice, a (T) wireless specialist, served as a wireless officer in the Atlantic and Mediterranean Fleets and then, when the RFC was formed in 1912, he was appointed for wireless duties with aircraft. He was Director of the Signal Division from 1923-25, and in the second war became a Convoy Commodore. In 1914 he wrote an account 6 of his early airbome experiences:
“I was appointed for W/T duties with airships with orders to obtain a transmitting range of 20 miles. My first experiment was with the airship Gamma; we had to fit up an assortment of odds and ends consisting of a magneto driven by belt from one of the balloon blowers and some Moschickie jars. I had to use what is called the balanced aerial system. This consisted of a double trailer let down from the bottom of the car on a drum, while the earth was made by wires triced to the bow and stern of the gasbag. Tuning was achieved by letting out or taking in the aerial until the ammeter gave a maximum swing; depending upon the wavelength used, you let out from 100 to 400 feet of aerial wire with a one pound weight on the end to keep it clear of everything. My chief concern was to prevent sparking in the vicinity of the gasbag, as though hydrogen is only explosive with the proper mixture of air, one could never be sure where or when this most undesirable mixture would take place.
The first experiment took place using a naval airship shore receiving station at Witttesfurd. We experimented at short ranges and everything seemed to do well, though I thought that there was a loss of strength in signals whenever the airship entered cloud banks. Our first experiment at night proved to be most interesting. We planned to fly over Cambridge some twenty miles away and starting at 9 pm we expected to be back by midnight’ We encountered a strong headwind and then on the way back we missed our camp and lost our way. At I am the mechanic informed the CO Major Maitland, that only three-quarters of an hour’s lubricating oil remained. It was evident that we could not land that night, so we switched off both engines to save our oil for landing by daylight, and free ballooned.
I do not think that I shall ever forget the feeling of perfect peace and quiet one experiences when ballooning at night. The Gamma gradually sank as the hours went by and we had to throw out all our ballast’ As the atmosphere became damper, it became imperative to lighten the ship. Major Maitland declared that the wireless equipment must go, but I protested strongly and declared that one of the crew would be of less consequence, preferably the engineer who had failed to take enough lubricating oil. Just then one of the one of the mechanics found another sandbag, but in his zeal, instead of opening it and emptying the sand, he threw the whole bag over. There was a sickening crash 2000 feet below very much like slate roofs falling in, and as the bag was marked HMA Gamma, we expected to come in for a coroners’ inquest in the near future, but we never heard of it again and never even knew in which county it happened.”
They landed safely at daylight in a field, but Fitzmaurice decided in order to lighten the load to return to Camp, with the transmitter, by train!
“The great difficulty in advancing radio in aircraft at this time was due to the entire lack of knowledge of communications on the part of aeroplane makers. Another was the lack of flying time, and a series of smashes which reduced the number of aircraft. The life of the first machine allocated for W/T trials was very short; on her last flight both engines suddenly stopped; we were 2,000feet up, above ground that looked suitable for landing, but an unseen dyke appeared and the pilot had to put the helm hard over and we got there all right but the plane broke up. Fortunately the W/T apparatus was undamaged.
My next step was to go to Paris to see a new radio set designed by M. Rouzet. It was light (70 lbs), compact and beautifully made, consisting of a self-excited alternator of ¼ kw power with a safety cutter and clutch for clutching in and out from the main engines, an air-cooled transformer, a tuning coil primary and secondary for altering the wave-length, and a spark gap of special design which emitted a clear musical note.
A new Short seaplane was ready in time to escort the Royal Yacht for the last 50 miles of her journey back from Flushing after the German Royal Wedding. Flying out to meet her, we sighted a battleship off the North Foreland. The pilot did not notice that she was carrying out gunnery practice and flew at 1,000 feet between the ship and the target. I did see it, but could not make him hear me. I saw a puff of smoke and a moment later we shivered all over and fell some distance. Evidently we had got into the vacuum of the shell!
We then picked up the Royal Yacht and gave them a W/T salute, the first message the King had ever received from an aircraft. The apparatus worked excellently and our base at Grain held us in good touch all the time, the distance being about 50 miles.
The next machine to be fitted was another Short seaplane; her life was briefer than most as she broke her back the day after acceptance trials through being stalled. After being repaired, she was burnt to a cinder by a spark from the magneto setting some petrol on fire!
Things began to move and seaplane stations were built at Yarmouth, Cromarty, Firth of Forth and Calshot. The Hermes was commissioned as a parent ship for aircraft and was fitted with a special platform on the foc’sle to enable machines to fly off, while the quarterdeck was fitted with derricks to hoist the aircraft in and out. Seaplane No. 81 was a great advance, carrying M. Rouzet’s latest W/T equipment and wings that could be folded. The main difficulty was starting the engines. On one occasion flying at 500 feet we began to shake all over; I looked over the side and saw that some struts to the floats had smashed and the floats were swinging back and forth. Sampson, the pilot, put the nose down, but suddenly the back fabric of the upper plane tore where the wings fold. I spent a most uncomfortable ten minutes holding on to the fabric to prevent the tear spreading. Fortunately Sampson made a magnificent landing without doing further damage.
One day flying from Hermes I had been sending signals by W/T and had just reported a tromp on our starboard bow when the engine suddenly stopped. We made a bad landing and smashed the undercarriage; luckily the tramp came to our rescue and hoisted us on to her poop. She was a German timber boat bound for Tilbury. A few hours later Hermes came in sight, having realised that something was wrong.
We were hoisted out and rehoisted onto Hermes, having hid a very interesting day!
Up to the present it has not been possible to receive signals in an aircraft due to the noise of the engines, but I have no doubt this will be overcome. There are few days when seaplanes cannot fly and they have a great advantage in speed and can mount higher than their natural enemy, the airship. They can carry bombs and guns and use wireless for spotting purposes; in fact I can see no limit to the ‘heavier-than- air’ machine. In a few years’ time everyone will fly and think nothing more of it than they do of present day motoring.”