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N0KFQ > TODAY 24.06.16 16:38l 54 Lines 2548 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 97576_N0KFQ
Read: GUEST
Subj: Today in History - Jun 24
Path: IW8PGT<CX2SA<N0KFQ
Sent: 160624/1416Z 97576@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.4.65
1915
First operational flight of new German fighter plane
On June 24, 1915, young Oswald Boelcke, one of the earliest and
best German fighter pilots of World War I, makes the first
operational flight of the Fokker Eindecker plane.
The years of the First World War, 1914 to 1918, saw a staggering
improvement not only in aircraft production, but also in
technology, on both sides of the conflict. The war began just a
decade after Orville and Wilbur Wright made their historic
12-second flight at Kittyhawk, North Carolina; by 1918, fighter
airplanes had been developed that could serve purposes of
observation and reconnaissance, tactical and strategic bombing,
direct attack on ground and air targets and use in naval warfare.
The Fokker Eindecker, a plane equipped first with one and
eventually with two machine guns that could fire straight ahead
through the aircraft's propellers, would have a huge impact on
air combat in the Great War and would put the Luftstreitkrafte,
the German Air Service, far ahead of the Allied air forces for
several months during the summer of 1915. The British referred to
this as the Fokker Menace or the Fokker Scourge. The plane's
designer, Anton Fokker, had based the concept of synchronization,
or the precise timing of the propeller blades to avoid being
struck by the machine gun bullets, on an aircraft designed by
France's Morane-Saulnier corporation and flown by the famous
French ace Roland Garros when he was shot down in April 1915 by
the Germans. The Fokker Eindecker, or Fokker E, plane made German
pilots like Boelcke and Max Immelmann into national heroes, as
the number of their kills increased exponentially.
By the end of the summer of 1915, the Allies had managed to
develop their own planes to rival the Fokkers, and balance was
restored. Another German air menace reared its head in early
1917, though, as the new German Albatros planes decimated the
British Royal Flying Corps in the skies over France. Soon,
however, Allied aviation technology and production began to far
outstrip the German efforts, as aerial combat became less a
question of individual battles by heroic pilots than a matter of
mass-production capability. In the last year of the war, Britain,
France and the United States jointly produced an average of
11,200 aircraft and 14,500 engines per month, while their
financially struggling German counterparts managed below 2,000 of
each.
73 - K.O., n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
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