Guide to Combat Aircraft - Piccolo Explorer Books

24 Pages Indexed. Stapled binding with stiff boards. Covers show light wear to edges and corners. No marks or stamps. Interior text and illustrations pages are bright, white, and tight with color illustrations on every page. Juvenile literature. When World War One began in 1914, most military chiefs thought aircraft were useless as weapons. At that time. most "heavier-than-air" machines were flimsily built and had unreliable engines. Flying was a slow and dangerous business and accidents were common. So at first. aircraft were onlv used to search for, spy on, and photograph the enemy. Before long. pilots began to shoot at each other with rifles and pistols. Then before the War was a year old, the first true fighter appeared in European skies. This was the German Fokker E.III which carried a machine-gun rigged to fire forwards. Straight away it began to shoot down hundreds of Allied aircraft. The British quickly produced the first real fighter for the Allies, the Vickers FB5 Gunbus.