ABSTRACT
Military aviation was even then a public issue, but political debate did little to clarify conceptions of the airplane's purpose. A struggle over where to place aviation in the military system-one destined to plague military politics for decades-was already beginning. But that struggle did as much to sidetrack thinking about the airplane's purpose as to inform it, partly because it encouraged exaggerated claims from partisans, partly because it focused attention on the organizational forms rather than on the strategic substance of air power.
