The science and technology of war has leaped beyond the boundaries of the possible into the world of the fantastic. Stealthy missiles, invisible bombers, pilotless fighter planes superior to anything with a human pilot, guided by a pilot sitting a thousand miles away in a darkened room, gazing into a computer screen. There are those who say that the day of the fighter pilot is gone, but I don’t think so. Technology is fine, but it takes a man to win a war. Fighter pilots will always be with us, and it all began with stick and canvas biplanes taking off from grass fields in France at dawn.

The dew kissed grass, the dawn lit sky
The SE5s trembling to fly
The chocks removed, the goggles down
Beyond the trees the tiny town
Awoke to hear the dawn-break roar
Of fighters climbing off to war
Into the sun they sped at height
The spear-tip of a nations might
The sun now up, the sky soft blue
No Huns in sight, as on they flew
They did not see the future pass
The Merlin and high octane gas
The Hurricane, the 262
Or owed by many to so few
The missile, radar, atoms lit
While fighters fought as pilots sit
In offices in front of screens
With war for some soft painted scenes
Below the SE5s the war
Had scarred the land and farms and more
The scar-line trenches hove in view
Into the sun the spear-tip flew