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Group Captain Frederick Charles Victor Laws (ca.1887-1975), O.B.E., was an officer in the Royal Air Force, an aerial surveyor, and the founder and most prominent pioneer of British aerial reconnaissance. ==Career in Aerial Photography== Before the Great War, Laws was an amateur photographer who on his own initiative experimented with photography from lighter-than-air aircraft.〔Staerck, 8〕 His military career began in the Coldstream Guards and the Royal Engineers, and he served in Egypt and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan as well as in the Camel Corps. In 1912, Laws “presented himself for a trade test at the headquarters of the Military Wing of the (created ) Royal Flying Corps then located at South Farnborough." He passed and was graded Air Mechanic 1st Class, but he “had a feeling that he knew more about the subject than did his examiner.” Within months, Laws was in charge of the photographic section of his squadron.〔Laws, 1958, 1〕 Flight Sergeant Laws first belonged to the 1st Airship Squadron and he began to take aerial photographs from the Army airship ''Beta''. Laws discovered that vertical photos taken with 60% overlap could be used to create a stereoscopic effect when viewed in a stereoscope, thus creating a perception of depth that could aid in cartography and in intelligence derived from aerial images.〔Aerial Photography, 36〕 Next year, Laws took similar photos from kites, Bleriot and Farman aircraft and other types just then being completed by the Royal Aircraft Factory at Farnborough. He also conducted camera experiments at the second RFC site at Salisbury Plain. As dirigibles were allocated to the Royal Navy in 1912, Laws was chosen to help form an aerial reconnaissance unit of fixed-wing aircraft, at that time consisting in part of B.E.2 biplanes from the Royal Aircraft Factory. This Nr.2 (Aeroplane) Company became No. 3 Squadron RAF, the first heavier-than-air British unit. Still, in 1914, the British entered into Aerial Reconnaissance in World War I with no credible heavier-than-air capability. The shortage was in optics and cameras as well as aircraft and pilots. Laws and his collaborators first created the A-camera, then later the L-camera (for Laws), which became the standard British airborne camera, usually fixed on the side of the fuselage pointing down. With Lt. Moore-Brabazon, the later Lord Brabazon, another aviation pioneer, Laws built the L/B camera for special situations, introduced late in the war.〔Taylor, 24〕 In 1914, Laws went to France with RFC Nr. 3 squadron and organized the air reconnaissance sections. In 1915, Laws commanded the RFC School of Photography at Farnborough.〔Imperial War Museum, online biography, retr. 26 Nov 2012〕 By the end of the Great War, Laws was recognized as “the most experienced aerial photographic adviser in England and possibly the world.”〔Hernan, 115〕 Now RAF Squadron Leader, Laws led the development of the F8 and F24 cameras, which became standard RAF equipage through the next war.〔Helman,79〕 Disappointed with the peacetime eclipse of his specialty, he resigned and worked for aerial survey companies in the 1930s. Rejoining the RAF at the beginning of World War II, Group Captain Laws became deputy director of aerial photography in the Air Ministry.〔Helman,86〕 When his American counterpart, Colonel George Goddard, met with Laws in London, Goddard described him as “short in stature, very proper in manner, - just as wary and sensitive as I might have been had he come prowling around my laboratory at Wright Field out to prove his goods were better than mine.”〔Goddard, 287〕 In peacetime, Laws established himself as a leader in commercial air survey. He participated in aerial surveys in the British Empire. In 1933-34, he was expedition leader of the aerial mapping of Western Australia for the H. Hemmings company, an enormous task using two DH 84 Dragons.〔Taylor, 24〕〔Hernan, 114〕 After retirement from the RAF in 1946, Laws served in a management capacity for several air survey and cartography companies. Laws authored several articles and treatises on aerial photography. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Frederick Charles Victor Laws」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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