|
WORLD WAR 1 AVIATION HISTORY: 1914 was the dawning of the aircrafts use in warfare. Made of canvas wood and wire the biplanes and tri-planes of the times topped out at about 100MPH and carried no weapons; WWI aircraft were originally used only for reconnaissance, photography and some far-sighted aviators began using small bombs; combat between airplanes was unknown; some pilots began using pistols and rifles then they began mounting some machine guns mounted in the observer's seat, which typically fired rearward or to the side. When a French pilot, Roland Garros, bolted steel deflectors to his propeller which permitted him to fire a machine gun through it, the airplane became a formatable offensive weapon.
In 1915 Tony Fokker, a Dutch airplane builder and entrepreneur working for the Germans, installed interrupter gear, permitting a machine gun to fire through the aircraft propeller with much more reliability. For a time, the Fokkers gave the Germans an early edge but over the course of the war, the innovations, quality, effectiveness, of the aircraft produced by both the Germans the Allied fighters caused air power superiority to swing back and forth.
Some other names of popular WWI aircraft besides the German Fokkers, are the French Nieuport, the German Albatros, French Spad, Salmson, the British Sopwith Camel, Sopwith Triplane, Bristol, Airco, Armstrong Whitworth, Ansaldo, Avro and many more experimental models were hastily manufactured as the aviation industry quickly evolved spurred on by the World War 1 effort.
MORE WWI AVIATION HISTORY from www.century-of-flight.net/...
Airplanes & WWI Military History Info from www.diggerhistory.info/...
The Aerodrome - Aces & Aircraft of WWI www.theaerodrome.com...
|