Introduction

World War I was a war that claimed innumerous lives; it was also a war in which new types of warfare and tactics were demonstrated in the battlefield. More efficient and mass-killing weapons were used in this war than in previous wars. Air power mainly served as a support and reconnaissance force in modern warfare. Its importance was fully discovered and recognized during World War I. In May 1912 a combined Royal Flying Corps (RFC) was formed with naval and military wings and a Central Flying School at Upavon on Salisbury Plain. On the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, the RFC, possessing a total of 179 airplanes, sent four squadrons to France. The RFC took its place beside the British navy and army as a separate service with its own ministry under a secretary of state for air. The strength of the Royal Air Force in November 1918 was nearly 291,000 officers and airmen. It possessed 200 operational squadrons and nearly the same number of training squadrons, with a total of 22,647 aircraft.

Airships

Airships, better known as zeppelins, were the first air weapon used in the war. The Germans first used them for bombing. Later, both sides abandoned the use of large rigid frame (metal frame) and used small and non-rigid airships instead. This saved materials for building airships, and also gave airships better maneuverability. For the British, airships were used for antisubmarine patrol, convoy escort, and coastal reconnaissance. However, their benefits were offset by the explosive nature of hydrogen gas the airships contained (which airships used it to float in the air). Unmanned airships were also used to make enemy planes fly higher.

Reconnaissance Aircraft

When airplanes were first put into the war, they were only used for visual reconnaissance. However, this was where the assets of airplanes lie. During the Battle of Marnes, when German troops were so close to Paris that they could see the tip of the Eiffel Tower, the RFC proved their worth and provided reconnaissance to the French and British troops, who attacked the Germans' flanks and saved Paris. Radios were also used first in the Battle of Marnes. A few British reconnaissance crafts managed to carry 75-pound Morse-code radio transmitters aloft. In the late afternoon of September 24, the first air warfare radio-guided fire-control instructions were sent down. At the same time, other British squadrons mounted the first air raid on German ground. At first the transmitters only allowed the observers to report and adjust artillery fire, as radios became lighter, they allowed two-way transmission between the air and ground.

Fighters

To avoid from being detected from air, fighters were developed to protect reconnaissance aircraft, escort bombers, and to intercept enemy aircraft. Fighters were fast, powerful, and highly maneuverable planes equipped with specialized weapons for shooting down enemy aircraft. In the beginning, weapons used in air to air combat were laughable, pistols, hand grenades, shotguns, and steel arrows called flechettes were used. Once, a French pilot returned with a hole in his plane saying that a German had thrown a brick at him! As on land, machine guns became the obvious and deadliest weapon in the war. At first, machine guns held only 50 rounds or less, so they often emptied in one or two bursts. Reloading was also a tiresome and very difficult job to do. The first gun mounts were crude and unreliable too, for they were unable to hold on to the ricochet force of the machine guns, and so the guns worked loose sometimes and fell overboard in combat. Later, machine guns that were more durable and with larger capacity were developed. Some of the most widely used air-to-air machine guns were - Lewis .303-caliber gun, Hotchkiss Portable MK.1, Vickers, LGM.08/15, and the Parabellum MG.13. The method of shooting and aiming also improved. French engineers, led by Raymond Saulnier, developed special mechanisms in the engines which would enable machine guns to fire cleanly between the blades of a revolving propellers. However, the Germans captured a French fighter intact, and the German authorities assigned engineers to study and develop an imitation of this device. The Allied air superiority ended when the Germans developed the new Fokker series. They were fast, light and highly maneuverable, and when equipped with the new synchronized firing system, they were a truly formidable foe. The Fokkers also had the machine gun's trigger on the control stick, so the pilot could fly and shoot with one hand, rather than try to coordinate both hands in a simultaneous juggling of shooting and steering. The Allies, who called themselves "Fokker fodder", called the German air superiority - "Fokker scourge". With the new fighters, the Germans were determined to "bleed France white". The Fokker mastery was ended (luckily) by new versions of the French Nieuport with a machine gun mounted above the top wing, allowing it to fire clear of the propeller arc, and by British D.H.2 and F.E.2b pushers with nose-mounted guns.

Most Allied fighters at that time were powered by rotary radial engines. These engines were relatively powerful in relation to their weight, but their large frontal areas produced a great deal of drag, and the gyroscopic forces caused by their whirling mass posed serious aircraft control problems. In mid-1916 Germany took the lead in fighter design on the basis of its superb Daimler and Benz water-cooled, in-line engines, such as those which powered the streamlined Albatros D.I, D.II, and D.III series of fighters. These were faster than their Allied opponents and, most important, could carry two machine guns without sacrificing performance. The Albatros D.I pioneered a fighter configuration which was to prevail into the 1930s: a compact, single-seat, externally braced tractor biplane armed with two synchronized machine guns mounted ahead of the pilot on the upper fuselage decking and aimed with a simple ring-and-bead sight. Albatros fighters gave the British a terrible drubbing above the Arras battlefield during the "Bloody April" of 1917, but a new generation of French and British fighters with more powerful engines soon tilted the balance toward the Allies. Some of these superior fighters were the French Spad fighters and the British S.E.5, both powered by the Spanish-designed and French-built Hispano-Suiza water-cooled V-8 engine, as well as the British Sopwith Camel and new versions of the French Nieuport, powered by improved rotary radial engines. (Please see visual for more technical information on fighters)

Ground Attack Aircraft

Ground attack aircraft were developed in the war to attack the trenches and infantries on the battlefield. Ground attack aircraft usually used flechettes instead of bombs, since flechettes could deal more piercing damage when they were dropped high from the sky. Ground attack crafts were also equipped with down-firing machine guns and grenade droppers. Some examples of these were the Sopwith Salamander, a development of the Sopwith Camel, and the German Halberstadt CL.III of 1917. At the Battle of Cambrai in November and December 1917, the Germans sent large formations of such aircraft over the British trenches and into the rear areas with devastating effect. By the end of the war, they were using large numbers of armoured, all-metal Junkers J.1 ground-attack aircraft, one of the most advanced machines to see combat during the war.

Bombers

One of the most significant advantages of air force was its ability to attack and destroy vital enemy grounds - resources, factories, towns etc. Bombers were developed to perform this special task. Since bombers were expected to fly a longer distance, and also to carry very heavy loads, they were slower to develop. The first bombing raids to achieve significant success (and the first to cross national boundaries) were mounted against the Zeppelin works at Friedrichshafen from Belgian bases by airmen of the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) on Oct. 8 and Nov. 21, 1914. These raids demonstrated the importance of bombers, and prompted the Admiralty to commission the development of the first specialized heavy night bomber, the Handley Page H.P. O/100, which flew for the first time in December 1915. Meanwhile, other air forces began building and putting into service strategic day bombers. Among the first were the French Voisins which was used in early 1915 to carry about 130 pounds of small bombs that simply lay in the bottom of the cockpit until the time came for the observer to drop them overboard. Later new models had more powerful engines and were equipped alternatively as attack aircraft, carrying up to 660 pounds of bombs or having a 37-millimetre gun mounted in the nose. None flew faster than 84 miles per hour, so the Voisins operated mainly at night during the last of the war. The War's most well-know bomber was the Gotha G. IV, used by the Germans which repeatedly bombed London and Paris. One of the largest aircraft in WWI was the British bomber - Handley Page 0/400, which could deliver a 1650-pound bomb. The German air force also operated a class of giant four-engined metal bombers known as Riesenflugzeug, or R-planes. Typical of these was the Staaken R.VI number R.25, which was powered by four 260-horsepower Mercedes engines. This had a takeoff weight of 25,269 pounds, which included a crew of seven and a bomb load of up to 4,000 pounds. (Please see visual on more technical information)

Naval Combat Aircraft

Naval aviation made significant progress in World War I. There were three categories of marine combat aircraft - long range over-water reconnaissance, float-plane fighters, and ship-borne aircraft. These aircraft were mainly used for anti-submarine and reconnaissance. The British mainly used long-range flying boats (so called because they shaped like the hull of a boat) for submarine detection, using a methodical and mathematically developed search pattern. The Germans used reconnaissance and fighter floatplanes to attack Allied air patrols and naval operations. Glenn Curtiss of the United States developed the best naval aircraft. It was a long-range coastal-based flying boat with two large engines. These aircraft were quite fast and maneuverable to engage enemy zeppelins and aircraft in combat. Carrier-based aircraft also advanced rapidly. The first ship-borne aircraft was the British Sopwith Pups, which flown off a primitive carrier (which was converted from a merchant ship), and on August 2, 1917, the first plane was landed on the takeoff deck HMS Furious, when the ship was moving. This had proven the concept of aircraft carrier, and the British immediately developed more formidable naval aircraft. The Sopwith Cuckoos were developed to carry torpedoes to attack ships. The war ended, however, without putting the Sopwith Cuckoos into use.

Training

When aerial warfare became a major issue in WWI, training became an essential element to achieve air dominance. Major Robert Smith-Barry of the Royal Flying Corps introduced a training curriculum based on a combination of academic classroom training and supervised flight instructions (just like our modern driving school). The system was based on avoiding potentially dangerous maneuvers, but sometimes the supervisor would expose the student to "controlled" dangerous maneuvers so that the student would learn how to recover from them, thus gaining more confidence and skill. The most common training craft used by the British was the Avro 504J, a training craft with dual controls, good handling, adequate power, and an in-flight communication between instructor and the student using an acoustic rubber tubing. This Smith-Barry system was eventually adopted by training schools all over the world. Airmen were trained to shoot from their planes by sitting in simulated cockpits that move along rails and firing the machine guns at the target. They were trained to target a plane by catching the target plane in the sight of a camera gun, a training device that shot film instead of bullets.

Famous Canadian Pilots

Throughout the war many ace pilots emerged from the "dogfights" in the air. Canadians, too, had some heroes of the air. One was William George "Billy" Barker, who was born in Manitoba. He was a reconnaissance craft pilot at first, but he managed to fight off six German fighters with his reconnaissance plane, and took important photographs of German defenses and troops movement, which helped in the Battle of Somme. He was transferred to Italy and became the top "observation balloon buster". He and his squadron had also destroyed the Austrian Motta aerodrome (as a Christmas greeting) and also saved the Italian Istrana aerodrome from deadly German Gotha bombers. Barker had also saved countless British pilots by killing the Austrian Ace - Franke Linke-Crawford.

Another Canadian fighter ace was Raymond Collishaw of Nanaimo. Raymond did not do very well in his training, and he made a lot of mistakes. However, he was an excellent pilot when he finally fought in the war. During one of his missions, he accidentally flew out the front and six German fighters attacked him. His goggles shattered, and he was nearly blinded by the glass. Also his on-board navigational devices were also damaged. In desperation he dove for the trees hoping to lose them. One Albatros followed and crashed, another cut in front of him and presented a point-blank target. Collishaw did not miss and sent him into the ground with an accurate burst. Collishaw then flew high in the clouds and managed to lose the pursuing crafts. Later he landed on an airfield using the direction of the sun. Suddenly he saw a row of Fokkers on the airfield and realized that he landed on a German airfield. He quickly flew away and at last managed to land in a French airfield.

Collishaw was also involved in the air battle that nearly killed the German Baron von Richthofen. 30 Albatroses, some from Richthofen's Jasta 11, had set upon six FE2bs. One FE2b gunner grazed Richthofen's skull with a bullet. The German "Ace of Aces" was lucky to come to before he crashed and managed to land his aircraft. The wound put him out of action for a month. In fine style Collishaw shot down 6 Albatros scouts, Alexander got two and Reid one. Collishaw was awarded the Distinguished Service Order, the 2nd highest award for bravery in combat, for his day's work.

Conclusion

Air power was a major breakthrough of warfare. It provided a dimension in which fighters may go as free as they want, and the aerial weapons developed in World War I proved the importance of aerial warfare. Aircraft made significant differences in World War I, for it gave commanders precise information about the enemy movements. Aircraft could also strike at spots deep in enemy territories, which might not be reached by land or sea forces. Military aviation had undergone a complete transformation between World War I, and World War II. A typical combat aircraft of World War I was a fabric-covered, externally braced biplane with fixed landing gear and open cockpits. These biplanes had very week engines. Few engines were developed as much as 250 horsepower, and top speeds of 120 miles per hour were exceptional. However, by World War II, most combat aircraft were all-metal monoplanes with retractable landing gear. They had engines with 1000 or more horsepower, which permitted the aircraft to fly more than 350 miles per hour and an altitude of 30,000 feet. After World War I, all major powers began to put more and more resources into developing better military aircraft. The U.S. government, for example, sponsored a systematic program of aerodynamic research under the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics that was to yield enormous dividends in aircraft performance through drag-reduction, engine cooling, and airfoil technologies. Still, the most significant technical advance in the 1920s was the abandonment of wooden structures in favour of metal frames (still fabric-covered) to provide the strength needed to cope with increasingly powerful engines and to resist harsh climates around the world.