Even before the invention of powered flight humans have sought to take to the air to gain an advantage in war. Initially the military uses of flight were focused on reconnaissance, in particular gaining a bird's eye view of the battle field. Early attempts saw the use of manned kites in China and Japan and later the use of hot air balloons as seen in the American Civil war, Napoleonic wars and by the French in the siege of Paris in 1870. Although useful the true potential had yet to be realised.
The First World War
The First World War saw the real birth of military airpower and a rapid advance of the technology involved. At the start of the war aircraft were primitive having only been in existence for a decade and were used almost exclusively for recon and static balloons continued to be used throughout the war. Airship technology saw the development of balloons into an offensive weapon with the famous Zeppelin raids. On 31st May 1915 German Zeppelins bombed London for the first time which caused 7 deaths and 35 injured, on the 8th September one Zeppelin raid caused more than half a million pounds of damage and was the most successful raid of the war. Ultimately such slow big machines proved too vulnerable and as the British aircraft started to be armed with a mix of explosive and incendiary bullets the big airships became death traps - a German airship with the potential to bomb New York was shot down on 5th August 1918 by a British fighter crewed by Egbert Cadbury, a member of the famous Chocolate making family.
Aircraft technology developed rapidly especially in the area of weaponry. Early aircraft were at first unarmed then later defended by crew with pistols or rifles or even thrown darts or small hand bombs. The development of smaller lighter machine guns offered the perfect weapon for aircraft but it wasn't until the development of a method to synchronise firing with the propeller to allow forward firing guns that the first true fighter aircraft was born. This was the age of the fighter ace, larger than life characters that captured the public's hearts with their dashing tales of heroism. In contrast to the mud and dirt of the trenches this was the cavalry ethos reborn in these early knights of the sky. This view of the military pilot, in particular the fighter pilot has never really gone away and is still with us today, sustained by cinema images such as top gun and recruitment by the world's air forces.
Read Full Article »
