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Pursuit Aircraft in the Great War

At the commencement of the European war, it was universally believed that radical advances in warfare would be made, especially in the new arm of aviation. This expectation began to be realized almost immediately, with the result that each year such great strides were made in the development and tactical use of aircraft that many prophesied that victory would come to the side which could obtain and maintain the supremacy in the air.

A primary purpose of fighter aircraft is to destroy other aircraft, either in offensive or defensive modes of operation, or to pose such a compelling threat that enemy air operations are effectively curtailed. Enemy fighters, bombers, patrol and reconnaissance aircraft, as well as ground-support and transport aircraft, are the prey of the fighter. To perform its intended function, the fighter must be able to reach a favorable position for inflicting crippling damage on the enemy. This means that the fighter pilot must first be able to detect the enemy aircraft; the methods of detection employed in the First World War were primarily visual. Thus, the aircraft and pilot's position in it must be designed to provide the widest possible field of view. Detection means little, however, unless the aircraft possesses the performance and maneuverability necessary to achieve a favorable attack position and provides a steady gun platform together with sufficiently powerful armament to destroy the enemy once a favorable position has been achieved. Some of the performance and maneuverability characteristics of importance are speed in various flight conditions, rate of climb and ceiling, roll rate, turning radius and climb capability while in a turn, and range and endurance.

Sufficient strength must be provided for the aircraft to survive the loads imposed by high g maneuvers at high speed without structural failure. The ability to sustain a certain amount of enemy fire without catastrophic damage is another important attribute of the successful fighter aircraft. Adding to the design challenge is the necessity for maintaining structural weight at a minimum, while at the same time providing the required strength and durability.

Another important ingredient inherent in a successful fighter aircraft is the manner in which it handles. The flying and handling characteristics of aircraft have been under study for over 60 years and continue to be the subject of investigation as new aircraft configurations evolve and new operating ranges of speed and altitude are encountered. Broadly speaking, an aircraft with good handling characteristics must obey the pilot's control inputs precisely, rapidly, and predictably without unwanted excursions or uncontrollable behavior and without excessive physical effort on the part of the pilot. Preferably, the aircraft should possess these desirable characteristics throughout its performance envelope.

There were three years of struggle for aerial supremacy, the combatants being England and France against Germany, and the contest was neck and neck all the way. Germany led at the outset with the standardised two-seater biplanes manned by pilots and observers, whose training was superior to that afforded by any other nation, while the machines themselves were better equipped and fitted with accessories. All the early German aeroplanes were designated Taube by the uninitiated, and were formed with swept-back, curved wings very much resembling the wings of a bird. These had obvious disadvantages, but the standardisation of design and mass production of the German factories kept them in the field for a considerable period, and they flew side by side with tractor biplanes of improved design.

The first true fighters to appear in World War I were the Fokker Eindecker series of monoplanes that caused a revolution in the concepts of the way in which a fighting airplane could be employed. The Eindecker was not particularly fast or maneuverable, but it was the first aircraft to effectively employ a fixed, forward-firing machine gun that was synchronized with the engine so that the bullets passed between [11] the blades of the revolving propeller. The gun was aimed by aiming the entire airplane. This new flying weapon entered combat service in the summer of 1915. Credit for the invention of the synchronized machine gun is a matter of debate among aviation historians, but there is no doubt that the Fokker Eindeckers were the first aircraft to employ this concept in an effective operational sense. Anthony Fokker's version of the invention of the synchronized machine gun and its early use are contained in his autobiography. For a little time, the Fokker monoplane became a definite threat both to French and British machines. It was an improvement on the Morane French monoplane, and with a high-powered engine it climbed quickly and flew fast, doing a good deal of damage for a brief period of 1915. Allied design got ahead of it and finally drove it out of the air.

German equipment at the outset, which put the Allies at a disadvantage, included a hand-operated magneto engine-starter and a small independent screw which, mounted on one of the main planes, drove the dynamo used for the wireless set. Cameras were fitted on practically every machine; equipment included accurate compasses and pressure petrol gauges, speed and height recording instruments, bomb-dropping fittings and sectional radiators which facilitated repairs and gave maximum engine efficiency in spite of variations of temperature. As counter to these, the Allied pilots had resource amounting to impudence. In the early days they carried rifles and hand grenades and automatic pistols. They loaded their machines down, often at their own expense, with accessories and fittings until their aeroplanes earned their title of Christmas trees. They played with death in a way that shocked the average German pilot of the War's early stages, declining to fight according to rule and indulging in the individual duels of the air which the German hated. As Sir John French put it in one of his reports, they established a personal ascendancy over the enemy, and in this way compensated for their inferior material.

French diversity of design fitted in well with the initiative and resource displayed by the French pilots. The big Caudron type was the ideal bomber of the early days; Farman machines were excellent for reconnaissance and artillery spotting; the Bleriots proved excellent as fighting scouts and for aerial photography; the Nieuports made good fighters, as did the Spads, both being very fast craft, as were the Morane-Saulnier monoplanes, while the big Voisin biplanes rivalled the Caudron machines as bombers.

The day of the Fokker ended when the British B.E.2.C. aeroplane came to France in good quantities, and the F.E. type, together with the De Havilland machines, rendered British aerial superiority a certainty. Germany's best reply—this was about 1916—was the Albatross biplane, which was used by Captain Baron von Richthofen for his famous travelling circus, manned by German star pilots and sent to various parts of the line to hearten up German troops and aviators after any specially bad strafe. Then there were the Aviatik biplane and the HaIberstadt fighting scout, a cleanly built and very fast machine with a powerful engine with which Germany tried to win back superiority in the third year of the War, but Allied design kept about three months ahead of that of the enemy, once the Fokker had been mastered, and the race went on. Spads and Bristol fighters, Sopwith scouts and F.E.'s played their part in the race, and design was still advancing when peace came.