The Air Battalion Royal Engineers (ABRE) was the first flying unit of the British Armed Forces to make use of heavier-than-air craft.
In 1911, following the growth in early aviation activity, the War Office issued instructions for the School of Ballooning, which had originally been formed in 1888, to be expanded into a battalion.
A mechanical engineer from the Royal Field Artillery, Fulton had been an early enthusiast of military flying and had attended the world's first air show at Rheims in 1909.
On 17 September 1911, Lt. R.A. Cammell, RE was killed in the crash of a Valkyrie monoplane at Hendon airfield;[1] a 1922 account of the formation of the RAF states this was the only fatal accident in the Air Battalion.
[2] On 14 February 1912, Lt. Barrington-Kennet flew a government-bought aeroplane – a two-seater Nieuport monoplane with a 50 hp Gnome engine – 249.5 miles in 4 hours and 32 minutes, setting a record.