At the end of the First World War Britain led the world in aeronautical technology. The newly independent Royal Air Force outnumbered any other military air service in the world, and, because of the demands of war, the nation had a thriving aeronautics industry. More important, perhaps, was a widespread mindset of “airmindedness,” a belief that the future was in the air, that the airplane and airship were simply the most vital and dynamic form of communication for the modern age, and that taking advantage of the opportunities offered by it could strengthen Britain in a variety of ways. How British civil aviation was developed as an agent of empire through the interwar years and how it was planned to extend, support, and reinvigorate the imperial idea is the subject of Gordon Pirie’s insightful Air Empire, the latest title in Manchester’s excellent Studies in Imperialism series. Making use of a wide variety of sources, Pirie constructs a fascinating account of the attempt to develop air routes throughout the empire in the days before the Second World War.

Even in the very early days of flying before the First World War, aviation enthusiasts were predicting that the flying machine would become a vital tool of empire, ensuring rapid communications between the motherland and far-flung colonial outposts, as well as a means of exploring and mapping the unknown and developing trade routes and a cheap but effective means of colonial policing and imperial defense. The immediate postwar years, with a huge surplus of ex–service aircraft and experienced personnel, was the perfect time for Britain to develop new connections between the imperial core and periphery by employing air transportation to “modernise, maintain, protect, reassert and legitimate Empire” (2). Yet, as Pirie demonstrates, while there was a great deal of talk and a sophisticated and widespread propaganda campaign, including numerous articles and public lectures by the spokesmen of imperial aviation advocating some really grandiose schemes, few really had any idea of just how daunting was the task of establishing air routes throughout the empire.

Two major routes dominated the thinking of the air lobby: one would link Britain to India through the newly acquired imperial territories of the Middle East and eventually reach Australia, and a second trunk route would traverse British colonial Africa down to South Africa. Yet while the advocates of imperial air routes began their campaign even before the Great War ended, it was not until the 1930s that the first commercial flights actually began. This was perhaps not surprising, for what seemed such a reasonably straightforward plan in London was fraught with difficulties when it came to establishing such routes in Africa and the Middle East. The one-off long-distance pioneering flights by individual aviators like the Australian Smith brothers, Alan Cobham, and Amy Johnson were relatively simple to organize, but few had any real idea about the enormous difficulties involved in creating a chain of airfields and service centers in what were often largely unexplored and inhospitable territories. Routes had to be surveyed and refueling stations built, and with all the associated difficulties of acquiring land rights and shipping in building supplies and personnel, such negotiations were often tortuous. Colonial governments were often unhappy with London’s attempts to dominate regional development through its monopoly air transport company Imperial Airways (established in 1924), when locals or foreign competitors like German and Dutch companies could sometimes offer a more economical and reliable service.

A significant distraction was offered by the airship, seemingly the answer to long-distance flights and offering a high level of comfort for passengers used to luxury travel. But British hopes for an imperial airship service were dashed by the disastrous crash of the R101 on its inaugural flight to India in October 1930 that killed several major figures in imperial aviation and almost everyone else on board. Henceforth air transport would rely on the airplane. But while Britain had led the way in air technology in 1919, by 1930 it was America that had taken the lead in commercial flying. With companies like Douglas and Boeing developing fast, modern, and reliable airliners for the expanding American air networks, British manufacturers were left behind. Nevertheless, Imperial Airways began its scheduled commercial flights in the 1930s and, while initially never achieving the promised reliability and frequency, improved immensely as the decade wore on until another war closed down the imperial air routes. Imperial air travel failed to weld the empire together and failed to invigorate the great imperial dream. It was often a story of false starts and mismanagement, but during a twenty-year period the pioneers of imperial aviation mapped the main air routes from London to the Far East and through Africa and created a network of airfields and service centers and all the paraphernalia associated with air travel on which our modern system is built. Perhaps more important, it helped to foster an interest in, and acceptance of, high-speed air travel that is so much a part of our modern world.