What has aviation meant to me?

It has meant being taken, as a boy of seven or eight (in 1913 or 1914) to Buc, a small airfield near Paris, to see the daring Pegoud “loop the loop”. I can still so well remember arriving at this small airfield, and this before daybreak—the air had to be very still for this daring feat!

Waiting for the sun to rise—the haze slowly clearing up—a few dim figures—a small boy clutching his father's hand. Then a dot on the horizon, a gentle hum, a graceful machine and then the “loop”, the breathless pause at the apex and the silence—then it vanishing away.