Lieutenant Colonel Charles James Burke (9 March 1882 – 9 April 1917) was an officer in the Royal Irish Regiment and the Royal Flying Corps and a military aviation pioneer. He was both the first commander of No. 2 Squadron and later the Second Wing. Charles Burke was the youngest son of Michael Charles Christopher Burke of Ballinhone House, Armagh, Ireland. Military career Burke's military service in the British Army began when he commissioned as a soldier in the 3rd (Militia) battalion of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, where he was promoted lieutenant on 24 October 1900. He saw active service with the battalion in the Second Boer War, for which he received the Queen's medal with two clasps. Following the end of the war in June 1902, he returned to the United Kingdom with the battalion on the SS Cestrian, which arrived in Southampton in October, and later the same year was commissioned into the regular army as a second-lieutenant in the Royal Irish Regiment. After several years of regimental service, including three years with the West African Frontier Force, he was promoted to captain in September 1909. The following year Burke travelled to France where he learned to fly in a Farman biplane, gaining his Aéro-Club de France certificate in the process. After his return to England, Burke was employed at the Army's Balloon School. In early 1911, Burke was involved in conducting heavier-than-air aircraft tests at the Balloon Factory. On 7 January 1911 Burke flew a Farman aircraft for two miles over Laffan's Plain at 50 to 80 feet and landed near the Balloon Factory. A few minutes later, Burke attempted a second flight. However, after only 50 yards he stalled and the aircraft came to earth on its right wing, cart-wheeled and disintegrated. Burke received injuries in the crash. Despite this experience, Burke was not deterred from flying. In July of the same year, he flew from Salisbury Plain to Aldershot and back and later on he made a return flight to Oxford. Burke was also one of the earliest British Army officers to consider air power in depth. In 1911, whilst serving as a captain in the Air Battalion, Burke wrote the first air power article to be published in the Royal United Services Institute Journal. In his article Burke compared the reconnaissance activities of cavalry to those of aircraft and observed that just as opposing