WW1 in the air

• Prior to WW1, balloons had been used for reconnaissance purposes
• The British Royal Flying Corps was founded in April 1912
• Royal Naval Air service was founded in July 1914
• In 1914, planes were seen as best suited for reconnaissance as they were slow, unreliable and flimsy (made of wood)
• The Royal Flying Corps was underfunded in 1914 as the army and navy took up most military spending, especially the navy after the 1906 launch of the HMS Dreadnaught
• In 1914, Britain had just over 100 military aeroplanes. By 1918, they had 22 thousand
• By 1918, the British aircraft industry employed almost 350 thousand people
• By 1918, the RAF used planes for photography, reconnaissance, ground attack, strategic bombing and air to air combat, amongst other things
• British engaged in aerial bombing from September 1914, when they attacked German airship sheds in Dusseldorf. They focused on military targets to start with.
• • German airships and later Gotha bombing planes bombed Britain from 1915. This made British civilians directly impacted by the war.
  • London was majorly raided from 1917
  • AA guns were hastily introduced as a result of this
• Aircraft were used in a form of total war or all arms offensives and were used for more well rounded support roles as the war went on, but especially during the 100 Days Offensives.
• Aircraft weaponry progressed from pistols in 1914, to 1000 pound bombs in 1918
• The RAF was the world‘s first independent air force and was founded in 1918 as a merger of the RFC and the RNAS.
• Fighter pilots were used as a propaganda tool to raise morale, being compared to chivalric knights.
• By 1918, the allies had air superiority and this contributed to their victory in the war
• 1903, first aeroplane developed by the Wright brothers
• • Kite balloons (Britain used from the 1890s) were used as reconnaissance aircraft on the Western Front until the development of incendiary ammunition in 1916.
  • They could ascend up to 4000 feet and could see a distance of 15 miles
  • They were used for aerial photography and reporting on artillery accuracy by telephone
  • They were protected by AA guns
  • Britain had balloon superiority of 15 to 1 in 1916
• In August 1914, four RFC squadrons were deployed to France to aid in reconnaissance
• The first reconnaissance missions had limited success with pilots such as Captain Mapplebeck getting lost on the 19th August 1914 and having to land at Cambrai for directions
• At the start of the war, observations were inaccurate as pilots could not accurately make out soldiers and trenches
• In late 1914, British aircraft adopted the use of identification flags and then roundels as British troops often shot at any aircraft they could see
• At the beginning of the war, radio was in its infancy so pilots relied on air to air signals and messages dropped from planes
• From 1915, the Sterling lightweight set was introduced which allowed two pilots to sit in the same plane and transmit messages back to the ground. This meant they were accurately able to report the position of AA and artillery placements
• From 1915, the RFC used the zone call system to transmit messages in morse code from pilots to receivers on the ground, often for the use of reconnaissance or artillery spotting. The map was split into numbered zones and the planes reported the target zone which was then passed on to the artillery batteries
• By May 1916, 300 British planes and 550 ground stations were using wireless technology
• Wireless signals only went one way, from the planes to the ground, so ground operators had to lay out cloth strips to communicate with pilots.
• Wireless antennae were easily damaged and dangerous to repair
• British army first experimented with aerial photography in 1912
• At the Battle of Neuve-Chapelle, aerial photography revealed new trench construction which led the British to majorly change their attack plans
• By mid-1915, air photographs were made into into mosaic maps and gave the British a 1:10000 scale map of enemy trench networks
• By 1916, photos could be delivered to command within 30 minutes of the plane landing
• In 1916, the RFC took over 19000 aerial photographs and over 430000 prints over the Somme alone
• By 1918, British scout planes flew at 15000 feet which meant that they were out of range of German AA guns and fighters
• Aerial reconnaissance led to an increase in camouflage, pioneered by the French in 1915.
• At Aubers-Ridge in May 1915, the British constructed fake trenches and artillery to deceive the Germans
• Some aircraft were paint camouflaged to avoid AA fire
• Initially, planes had no mounted weapons and had to rely on small arms
• First air to air casualty was in 1914 between a British and German scout plane with a rifle
• Lewis gun was adapted for use on British planes by removing the cooling system as it was not needed at high altitudes.
• Machine guns were initially fitted on biplane wings, or in a second cockpit, aimed by a second pilot. This format was effective on pusher aircraft because there was no risk to the propellers