To Rule the Winds is the story of how a coordinated force of the Royal Air Force's fighter squadrons came into being as Fighter Command in 1936 and what became of it after the Battle of Britain. It is a large story, to be told in a series of volumes.

This first volume recounts the origins of military aviation in Britain, up to the beginning of the First World War in the August of 1914. By the 18th and 19th Centuries, balloons had been tried in various conflicts on the Continent of Europe, during Britain's involvements in the Napoleonic wars, the Crimea, South Africa and elsewhere,...