- "A glorious death! Fight on and fly on to the last drop of blood and the last drop of petrol? a death for a knight.- BARON MANFRED VON RICHTHOFEN MILITARY COMMANDERS BEGAN TO REALISE THAT FLIGHT MIGHT BE USEFUL FOR WAR.
- Blood In The Air. Military Commanders Began To Realize That Flight Might Be Useful for war. When World War I began, powered flight was barely ten years old, but all the major combatant armies had small air forces. These early aircraft were slow, primitive, and unarmed, and mainly used for reconnaissance and artillery spotting. p But soon pilots were taking up pistols and rifles to attack the enemy. Within months, a way of mounting machine guns so that they fire through an aircraft's propellers had been invented, and the first fighters were born. For the next three years, flown by aces - such as Manfred von Richthofen, Albert Ball, and Georges Guynemer - whose exploits became legendary, they grappled over the Western Front in massive dogfights. The impetus of war produced a whole new range of aerial combat. In addition to reconnaissance and fighting scouts, specialist ground-attack machines were developed to attack the enemy's trenches and supply lines, and then long-range strategic bombers to strike industrial targets and cities far behind the lines. Aircraft went to sea - first airships then seaplanes and flying boats, and finally proper aircraft launched from ships. By the end of the war, Britain had the world's first aircraft carrier on which planes could both take-off and land. By 1918, all the types of aircraft which form the air fleets of today were in existence -and a new form of warfare had not only begun, but many theorists were arguing that it would be the decisive factor in any future conflict.—William A Mckibben
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