World war 2 maneuvers for air combat how to#

He forced the third one down, and was awarded the Victoria Cross. Later that same month, on July 25, 1915, British Royal Flying Corps (RFC) Major Lanoe Hawker, flying a very early production Bristol Scout C., attacked three separate aircraft during a single sortie, shooting down two with a non-synchronizable Lewis gun which was mounted next to his cockpit at an outwards angle to avoid hitting the propeller. The German Fokker E.I was flown by Lieutenant Kurt Wintgens, earning the victory over a French two-seat observation monoplane. On the evening of July 1, 1915, the very first aerial engagement by a fighter plane armed with a synchronized, forward-firing machine gun occurred just to the east of Luneville, France. The Germans acquired an early air superiority due to the invention of the synchronization gear in 1915, transforming air combat with the Fokker E.I, the first synchronized, forward firing fighter plane. Fokker decided that the wedges were much too risky, and improved the design by connecting the trigger of an MG 08 Maxim machine gun to the timing of the engine. The wreckage was brought to Anthony Fokker, a Dutch designer who built aircraft for the Germans. He achieved three kills, but was forced down due to engine failure down behind enemy lines, and captured before he could destroy his plane by burning it. Roland Garros solved this problem by mounting steel deflector wedges to the propeller of a Morane Saulnier monoplane.

The biggest problem was mounting a machine gun onto an aircraft so that it could be fired forward, through the propeller, and aimed by pointing the nose of the aircraft directly at the enemy. Once machine guns were mounted to the airplane, either on a flexible mounting or higher on the wings of early biplanes, the era of air combat began. In October 1914, an airplane was shot down by a hand gun from another plane for the first time over Rheims, France. In August 1914, Staff-Captain Pyotr Nesterov, from Russia, became the first pilot to ram his plane into an enemy spotter aircraft. Pilots then began firing hand-held guns at enemy planes, such as pistols and carbines. The first dogfight is believed to have taken place on 28 August 1914, when Norman Spratt, flying an unarmed Sopwith Tabloid, forced down a German Albatros C.I two-seater. Intrepid pilots decided to interfere with enemy reconnaissance by improvised means, including throwing bricks, grenades and sometimes rope, which they hoped would entangle the enemy plane's propeller. Due to weight restrictions, only small weapons could be carried on board. Įnemy pilots at first simply exchanged waves, or shook their fists at each other. The new airplanes proved their worth by spotting the hidden German advance on Paris in the second month of the war. According to Basil Collier “The Chinese are believed to have used man-lifting kites for military reconnaissance before or soon after the Christian era”. Balloons had been used for this purpose since the American Civil War in 1861. Aircraft were initially used as mobile observation vehicles, and early pilots gave little thought to aerial combat.

World war 2 maneuvers for air combat how to#

Ever since 'heavier than air' flight became a reality in 1903, people had been trying to figure out how to use this new technology for warfare. The first written reference to the modern day usage of the word comes from Fly Papers, by A. E. Illingworth, in 1919, “The battle develops into a ‘dog-fight’, small groups of machines engaging each other in a fight to the death.” The term fighter ace generally applies to any pilot who eliminates five opponent craft in the air (or, in Germany during World War I, ten aircraft), although not necessarily in a dogfight.ĭogfighting first emerged in World War I. The term gained popularity during World War II, although its origin in air combat can be traced to the latter years of World War I. The term dogfight has been used for centuries to describe a melee a fierce battle between two or more opponents. 2.3.1 Strategies for fighter development.