The First Air War
Ethan Keyser
ME 350X History of Technology
30 October, 2014
The First Air War is a NOVA TV program about WWI one and the rapid development in aircraft that it brought about. In the beginning of the war, aircraft were very delicate, slow and could barely carry passengers aloft. Because of this many generals at the time thought that there would never any use for airplanes in war. However, as the war developed, it became clear that aircraft could be used effectively as scouts to monitor enemy positions. Not long after, planes began to work with the artillery, coordinating their firepower. As planes became recognized as dangerous, ground troops began attempting to shoot them down. This forced the planes to become faster. Soon, each side was using planes both offensively and defensively, sending up friendly planes to destroy the attackers.
The first “dogfights” between aircraft were fought with rifles, and then they switched to mounted machine guns. The Germans were able to temporarily gain an advantage by designing a mechanism that sequenced the firing of the machine gun and the rotation of the propeller so that they could fire the machine gun from the front of the aircraft and through the rotating propeller. The British were eventually able to counter this by designing their own timing mechanism and putting it on the Sopwith Camel, an aircraft that was more maneuverable than its German counterpart. This eventually led to the allies winning the air war.