Weapons of War - The Airplane

At the start of the war, the Calvary was considered the glamorous part of the military. One new technology, the machine gun, quickly changed that glamour to another piece of technology. The airplane as a weapon evolved as the war continued to drag on. Initially, the airplane was used to replace the observation balloons. Observation balloons were raised hundreds of feet into the air, to look at enemy trenches and positions behind the trench lines. The airplane came into use to increase the ability to scout and photograph.

Early airplanes were not very safe or sturdy. The airframes were made of wood covered with a heavy canvas. Engines were not all that reliable. In the quick maneuvers necessary to avoid enemy fire, engines stopped or wings snapped off. Although the parachute had been developed many centuries before, it was not considered as useful for pilots by military planners.

They believed that the parachute would hurt the fighting ability of pilots. In other words, they thought the pilots would jump and save their lives instead of fighting enemy airplanes. Such stupidity was in effect until 1917, when French and German pilots were allowed to carry parachutes if they wanted. The British refused to allow their pilots to carry them during the entire war.

The British refusal forced their pilots to die horrible deaths by burning or crashing. Britain leading ace during the war carried a revolver in his plane to shoot himself rather than burn to death.
As the airplane became used more and more by both sides, encounters with enemy aircraft became frequent. Pilots considered themselves the knights of the air like a glamour medieval knight. Pilots were officers that considered themselves above the common soldier. Therefore, during the early part of the war, enemy pilots would wave at each other in greeting as they passed.

As the war dragged on, and hatred grew for the enemy, a variety of techniques were used to bring down enemy aircraft. One of the first attempts to do this was to attempt to drop bricks on enemy planes. One plane would fly above the other and drop the brick. If it hit, it would punch a hole in the wing to hopefully make it crash. Eventually, pilots would bring handguns, shotguns or even grenades to try to bring enemy planes down.

The real change in aerial warfare came with the success of French pilots in mounting machine guns to airplanes. The Germans took it one step further and mounted machine guns that could fire through the propeller. They developed a synchronized gear that allowed a bullet to pass without shooting of the propeller. This allowed the airplane to become a powerful weapon.

This led to the famous "dogfights" of the First World War. In these aerial battles, pilots would engage the enemy in a one on one fashion to see who survived. In many cases these would be masses of swirling airplanes chasing each other around the sky. If a pilot was able to shoot down five enemy airplanes, he was referred to as an "ace."

In view of the character of our fight it was clear to me that I had been tackling a flying champion. One day I was blithely flying to give chase when I noticed three Englishmen who also had apparently gone a-hunting. I noticed that they were watching me and as I felt much inclination to have a fight I did not want to disappoint them.

I was flying at a lower altitude. Consequently I had to wait until one of my English friends tried to drop on me. After a short while one of the three came sailing along and attempted to tackle me in the rear. After firing five shots he had to stop for I had swerved in a sharp curve.

The Englishman tried to catch me up in the rear while I tried to get behind him. So we circled round and round like madmen after one another at an altitude of about 10,000 feet.

First we circled twenty times to the left, and then thirty times to the right. Each tried to get behind and above the other. Soon I discovered that I was not meeting a beginner. He had not the slightest intention of breaking off the fight. He was traveling in a machine which turned beautifully. However, my own was better at rising than his, and I succeeded at last in getting above and beyond my English waltzing partner.

When we had got down to about 6,000 feet without having achieved anything in particular, my opponent ought to have discovered that it was time for him to take his leave. The wind was favorable to me for it drove us more and more towards the German position. At last we were above Bapaume, about half a mile behind the German front. The impertinent fellow was full of cheek and when we had got down to about 3,000 feet he merrily waved to me as if he would say, "Well, how do you do?"

The circles which we made around one another were so narrow that their diameter was probably no more than 250 or 300 feet. I had time to take a good look at my opponent. I looked down into his carriage and could see every movement of his head. If he had not had his cap on I would have noticed what kind of a face he was making.

My Englishmen was a good sportsman, but by and by the thing became a little too hot for him. He had to decide whether he would land on German ground or whether he would fly back to the English lines. Of course he tried the latter, after having endeavored in vain to escape me by loopings and such like tricks. At that time his first bullets were flying around me, for hitherto neither of us had been able to do any shooting.

When he had come down to about three hundred feet he tried to escape by flying in a zig-zag course during which, as is well known, it is difficult for an observer to shoot. That was my most favorable moment. I followed him at an altitude of from two hundred and fifty feet to one hundred and fifty feet, firing all the time. The Englishman could not help falling. But the jamming of my gun nearly robbed me of my success.

My opponent fell, shot through the head, one hundred and fifty feet behind our lines.
German Ace (The Red Baron)
Manfred von Richthofen

The war in the air was very vicious. In fact the Royal Air Force was known as the "suicide service." Men were killed in the air faster than men could be found to join. The life expectancy of a new pilot was in 1915 was averaging three weeks. By 1918, a new pilot was expected to last two days before being killed. Many pilots joked that they were only expected to last 20 minutes.