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I have been assigned a project about WW1 at school and I have decided to cover the aerial side of the war. I decided to come here as I knew I would get a very good response. If you could submit any notes/essays  ;) about WW1 Aerial Warfare I would be VERY grateful.

                     Thanks,
                                  Flight-Captain

 I would suggest searching google or other search engines, I know you will probably find everything you could ever want to know about WWI on the web.

Flight-Captain, sounds like an exciting project (wish my history teacher had been that cool), a quick Q. though.
Are you going to focus on the;
men
machines
evolution
of aerial warfare?
Let us know and I'm sure we can all help

Ozzy

my history project was on this in year 10. spent 4 weeks on it, 6000 words, marked by a student teacher got a D. the dumb ass didnt know what a plane was let alone what the entire air war was about. luckaly my history teacher himself double  checked it and i got a B.
i'll gladly help where i can.

One of the best places to try is a library. There's a book called "Flight, 100 Years of Aviation" by R.G. Grant. It has an excellent section on WWI aviation.

Books are probably the best resource unless you find a really good website.

The "dogfight" originated in WWI.  At first airplanes were only used for observation. They were not very maneuverable, they didn't have to be. Eventually, situations arose, where two observation aircraft from opposing sides would confront each other. Pilots began carrying pistols, so that they could try and shoot the enemy pilots in these situations. Then some guy got the bright idea to mount a more powerful gun than a pistol on an airplane. Imagine trying to shoot another pilot  in a moving airplane, FROM a moving airplane, with just a pistol! Because the guns were bigger, they needed to be mounted to the airplane, as opposed to being carried by the pilot(like a pistol). This meant the pilot had to point the airplane at his opponent to shoot him. You can guess what happened next...........pilots now wanted more maneuverable airplanes, not the slow observation planes that they were using. From this, aerial duels, or "dogfights" came into being!  ;)

Thanks for the replies everyone...
To Ozzy: I was hoping to focus on the evolution of aerial warfare and how it changed.
To OTTOL thanks for the post, that's going straight in!

I searched for websites on Google but couldn't find any on the revolution of aircraft during WW1!

I'll make sure Simviation and you guys get thanks!

One of the important "Landmarks" if WW1 aerial warfare was the invention of the interupting gear that allowed machine guns to fire through the propellor thus allowing them to be precisely alligned with the aircraft.

Further to what OTTOL has said initially the pilots were considered to be little more than chauffers for the observation officers. I'm not 100% sure of when the change took place but by the end of the war the roles had reversed.

I did a search on Google on Royal Flying Corps and found this interview of a pilot who joined a squadron in 1918 aged 19 years.

http://www.patrickwilson.com/RFC.html

I feel it gives a bit of a human perspective on the subject.

Will

Whoah!
Thanks Smoke2much that was great I shall use that!

No problems mate.  I'm glad it was some use.

Will

wasnt the parachute also first used in WW1 by zepplin pilots who were given a chance to survive after being shot down

Personally, I think you'd be better off focusing your thesis on one specific area of World War I aviation.  So much was going on at that point.

I mean, aviation itself was less than 20 years old, you had zeppelins, balloons, airplanes...

Then you had dogfighting, parachutes, the Red Baron...

I'd have my topic be something like the role of aviation in early conflict, the evolution of early flight, or something like that...

But I'm a history freak, so I'm a bit odd to begin with.  lol

Thanks guys......This is Gold! I can see that A*** already

Very Appreciated!

Don't forget to come back and let us know how it went!


Good luck!

What research have you done so far?

What will the thrust of your report cover?

Will you focus on the aerial dogfighting (which after all was really a secondary aspect of the use of air power)?

The REAL focus of aerial power in any war has always been the extension of the offensive arm (delivering ordnance as an extension of artillery), or extension of battle planners eyes - reconnaisance, observation, artillery spotting).  Fighters developed to inhibit the other side's ability to carry out the primary roles, and to prevent the other side from preventing your side to carry out it's primary role.

While your topic is interesting, I worry about the line "If you could submit any notes/essays" which could lead a cynical mind to think that you're just going to take the responses here and write them up, with little, if any, verification of facts, issues and original comments.


[quote]I have been assigned a project about WW1 at school and I have decided to cover the aerial side of the war. I decided to come here as I knew I would get a very good response. If you could submit any notes/essays