• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

European Aircraft - Great War

A multitude of aircraft types were tested in combat in the war period 1914-18, and literally hundreds of prototypes were built and flown. These numbers become believable when one considers that the prototype of a fighter aircraft could be designed, constructed, and test flown within a period of a few weeks. In contrast to the essentially job-shop approach to aircraft construction that prevailed prior to 1914, an aircraft industry was developing, nurtured by large expenditures of money by the belligerent governments.

The engineering principles of aircraft design were also beginning to take shape. Government laboratories, such as the Royal Aeronautical Establishment in England, contributed greatly to the foundations of aeronautical engineering. Scientific and engineering laboratories also existed in France, Italy, and Germany; and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was established in the United States by act of Congress in 1915. The results of NACA research, however, did not begin to have a significant impact on aircraft design until the mid-to late 1920's. In contrast to the European powers, the United States had essentially no air force and no real aircraft industry when war was declared on Germany in April 1917. Accordingly, the United States relied almost entirely on tried and proven European aircraft designs. Many of these aircraft were produced by European companies for use by the American Expeditionary Force, while others were manufactured under license in the United States.

Aircraft types of amazing variety were built in the continual quest for better fighting machines. Monoplanes, biplanes, and triplanes were employed in military operations at various stages of the war, and several quadruplanes were tested in prototype form. The wings of most of these aircraft were supported externally by a combination of wires and struts, although several designers developed aircraft with internally braced cantilever wings. Perhaps the most notable was the Dutch designer Anthony H. G. Fokker, who supplied many cantilever-wing fighter aircraft to the German air force. Both pusher- and tractor-type engine installations were employed, and multiengine bombers frequently utilized a combination of pusher and tractor powerplant installations. The pusher-type configuration was used extensively as a fighter, particularly by the British, in the early stages of the war.

The internal structure of most of the aircraft consisted of a wooden framework braced with wire and covered externally with cloth. Some aircraft employed a mixture of metal and wood in their construction, and experiments were conducted with all-metal aircraft whose wings were internally braced. Dormer and Junkers in Germany were among the pioneers in all-metal aircraft construction. The types of alloys available at the time, however, did not lend themselves to the light weight required in aircraft design, and the concepts of light, stressed-skin metal construction lay in the future. All-metal aircraft did not play an important role in World War 1. The use of plywood as an external covering, together with a minimum of internal structure, particularly in fuselage design, was also employed by several manufacturers.

Two vastly different engine types were employed in World War I aircraft: the stationary engine, usually water cooled, and the rotary engine. Water-cooled engines of 4, 6, 8, and 12 cylinders were extensively utilized. In concept, these engines were not unlike the present-day automobile engine; a few of the in-line engines were air cooled. The rotary engine had cylinders arranged radially around a crankshaft; but unlike the modern radial engine, the crankshaft was fixed to the aircraft, and -the cylinders and crankcase, with propeller attached, rotated around it. This engine type was relatively light and was cooled easily by engine rotation, advantages that accounted for its extensive use. The rotary engine, perfected in France, had a primitive control system and introduced undesirable gyroscopic moments in the aircraft that adversely affected flying characteristics. The rotary engine is a curiosity that rapidly vanished from the scene following the close of World War I.

The design of a successful aircraft, even today, is not an exact science. It involves a combination of proven scientific principles, engineering intuition, detailed market or mission requirements, and perhaps a bit of inventiveness and daring. Aircraft design during World War I was more inventive, intuitive, and daring than anything else. [9] Prototypes were frequently constructed from full-size chalk drawings laid out on the factory floor. The principles of aerodynamics that form so important a part of aircraft design today were relatively little understood by aircraft designers during the war.

The air service became, as soon as the armies dug underground, the most important factor in the war. The aeroplane became the eyes of the army. On it the artillery fire entirely depended at all times. Upon it the army must rely for knowledge of the existence and whereabouts of any assault. The all important portion of the air service was, therefore, its least dramatic and the one about which least has been said. The observation of the enemy's batteries and lines was undertaken partly by observation balloons, anchored within the Allied lines, and able to see with accuracy all of the smaller and nearer enemy artillery. The larger enemy guns, located, of course, several miles away, were ferreted out by the slow, heavy aeroplanes, carrying at least the pilot and his observer, and equipped with camera and wireless. This branch of the service was the fundamental factor, and performed what the British called "ceiling work." On it almost every phase of the combat depended.

Another phase of air work was the bombardment of enemy territory. Munition factories, railroad junctions, railroad yards far in the rear of the lines were commonly the targets, and a few well-directed bombs might do enough damage, it was thought, to prevent some movement at the front; might interfere with a stream of supplies or with the manufacture of munitions long enough to be of some consequence. It is not yet proved, however, that the bom bardment from the air, undertaken by both sides, had any material effect upon military events.

The last phase of aviation, the most dramatic and most popular, was, from the point of view of the larger aspects of warfare, the least important. This was the aviation of combat. Its purpose was to protect the balloons and the observation planes of the Allies while they were obtaining the data upon which the conduct of the war depended. This made essential attacks upon German aeroplanes which were attempting to destroy the Allied balloons or observation planes. Another phase was naturally an attempt to destroy the German balloons and observation planes and often led to combats in the air with the German fighting machines sent out to protect their own observers. This work was always dangerous in the extreme and not infrequently important, though it is not yet demonstrated that either the Germans or Allies succeeded in getting control of the air for more than a very brief period or that any of the military victories was the direct result of the fighting in the air. Probably no military event of any consequence took place which did not have vital connection with the air service, but it is probable that the great successes were not due to any one arm of the air service.

During the last two years of the war extraordinary developments were in progress which might have resulted, had the war lasted longer, in great transformations of warfare itself. The aeroplane began to take a direct part in the fighting on the ground. Fighting planes did occasionally annihilate a German division marching to the trenches, or was able to rake a trench with machine gun fire from the air and thus remove the obstacle facing the Allied troops. The great gun batteries located far behind the lines were particularly vulnerable.

In the great offensive of 1918 whole squadrons of aeroplanes fought battles in the air, when hundreds of planes charged each other, laid down barrages of machine gun fire, and even attempted concerted assaults upon large masses of troops, advancing across open ground. Of course, the aeroplane, armed only with a machine gun, could never assault with success prepared trenches or dugouts, but once the troops left their defenses and started to charge across the open, unprotected by artillery, a single aeroplane might do great damage. Columns advancing to the support of the front trenches were also splendid targets for the aviators. The daring of some men was extreme. Garros, one of the first great French aviators, bombed trains, troops, supply depots, from a distance of only one hundred feet above them.

As the war went on, changes in the structure of the aeroplanes were no less remarkable than the increase in the skill of the pilots. Before the war the machines had been barely dependable, had lacked strength and stability, but as the war went on nearly all desirable qualities were developed, and in addition, motors were created capable of carrying heavy weights over great distances and planes were built able to fly in heavy winds or storms. Mechanics learned how to mend the machines while in the air, even repairing the engine itself. Hospital aeroplanes were created and minor operations were sometimes performed in flight. So great was the stability of the planes at the end of the war that part of the machine could be blown away by a shell and the machine would still fly. Bishop, the British aviator, landed with his machine in flames and escaped unhurt, largely because of his confidence that, although the machine was doomed, he would be able to control it long enough to reach the earth.

The real interest of the war centered in these fighting planes. They developed a speed of one hundred and thirty miles an hour, would climb into the air at the rate of one thousand feet a minute, and some carried as many as three rapid fire guns, able to fire four hundred shots a minute. Many great aces were developed on both sides, but although numerous personal exploits are extremely interesting to study, the general tactics of aviation as a whole are really of more consequence in the history of the war.

On July 30, 1918, at the inauguration of the Allied offensive which resulted in victory, the total Allied aerial force in service from the North Sea to the Adriatic was 5,528 planes and 164 balloons. At the same time the total German and Austrian strength was 3,309 planes and 194 balloons. The French Air Service, the largest of all, had but 2,820 active planes on the front on July 30, 1918, including 1,440 observation, $45 pursuit, 225 day-bombing, and 210 night-bombing. The British had a total of 1,664 active planes, with but 390 observation, 911 pursuit, 194 day-bombing, aind 169 night-bombing. Italy stood next among the Allies with 614, including 277 observation, 282 pursuit, eight day-bombing, and 47 night-bombing. The United States, which was just beginning to appear on the front, had 270, with 126 each observation and pursuit, and 18 day-bombing. Belgium had 160 planes, including 105 observation, 45 pursuit, and 10 nightbombing.

On the side of the Central Powers, Germany was credited by the French with 2,592 planes, including 1,290 observation, 1,080 pursuit, no day-bombing, and 222 night-bombing, while Austria was credited by Italy with 717 active planes, including 200 observation, 450 pursuit, no day-bombing, and 67 night-bombing. These figures, of course, take into account only active service planes, and do not consider service planes out of commission, replacements, or training planes; nor do they show the number of pilots, as most of these types carry more than one flier and all require replacement three or more times a year.

The contrast between these figures of August 1, 1918, with unofficial publicity campaigns in the United States only a year before for "a fleet of 100,000 airplanes" shows strikingly how preposterously misinformed this country was. That no official attempt was made until early in 1918 to throw the various Air Services into true perspective is an indication of official lack of vision as to the difficulty of the task undertaken; it was an omission which cost dearly when popular opinion rose in criticism. The contrast is all the sharper because a year before the belligerent services had been very much smaller, the French, for instance, having increased 40 percent within the year.