Aircrafts Role In World War One

During the first half of World War One, people were still trying to figure out what purpose aircrafts would serve in the war. No one had ever fought a war with aircrafts before, as wars before 1914 were fought on land or at sea. Even while most were skeptical, aircrafts quickly became involved in the war. While air combat would not change the outcome of World War One, it played an integral and essential role in drawing the war to a close. Death of pilots and those involved in aerial fighting was desperately high as soldiers and engineers struggled with delicate technology that was still in its infancy. Ultimately, as aircrafts played no role in the outcome of the war, air combat in World War One should have been left for reconnaissance purposes …show more content…
As a matter of fact, at the onset of the war, it had only been ten years since the Wright brother’s first successful flight in an airplane. Additionally, the only successful flight over the English Channel had been in 1909 by Louis Bleriot, so it was only normal that aircraft would be exceptionally crude at the time (historylearningsite.com). As airplane development was in its earliest of stages, the Royal Flying Corps had begun to experiment with arming aircrafts, but the designs and construction remained awkward and underdeveloped. Even with such doubts, airplanes were still wrongfully and quickly thrown into combat. Aerial combat meant coming face to face with the opponent, who would only be a few feet away and pilots only had crude and ineffective weaponry at their disposal. At this time, the airplane was still made of cloth, wood and wires, resembling more of a fragile kite than a machine of war (Aces). Even the smallest gust of wind could flip a plane over (ebook). Aviators fought in flimsy “canvas and wood biplanes” that had difficulty reaching 100 miles per hour (acepilots.com). Pilots faced the constant fear of tearing a plane’s wing when diving too steep, that would result in a fatal crash (death of an air race eyewitnesshistory.com). Pilots flew in cramped cockpits so they could not fit or use parachutes, …show more content…
This meant, that because aviators had little time to be trained, aircrafts would have to be easy to operate, designed for stability rather than for war (firstworldwar.com). Pilots, on average, only trained for about six hours of flying time before going out in a plane by themselves. Louis Strange took to flying in solo combat missions “having completed only three and a half hours of actual flying time” (firstworldwar.com). It was difficult to find time to train young pilots because training aircraft could only be flown in good weather and were relatively fragile. The unstable aircrafts were limited to two passengers only and could only reach an altitude of 300 feet (RFC), unlike actual war scenarios. Anthony Fokker, a Dutch aircraft manufacturer, realized that “it takes long practice and constant vigilance to guard against surprise air attack” (eyewitnesstohistory/fokker). With little tactical and survival training, the pilots of World War One were not prepared to defend their nation in the