Audio by NMUSAF PA | National Museum of the U.S. Air Force | 05.23.2013
The stationary observation balloon, or aerostat, had an advantage over aircraft in that it had a direct telephone line to the artillery battery, giving near real-time reconnaissance feedback during an attack. The armies deployed them no closer than three miles from the front, and two observers normally ascended to 3,600 feet. While fixed-wing aircraft used square maps, the balloon used......
Audio by NMUSAF PA | National Museum of the U.S. Air Force | 05.23.2013
Although the museum’s German Halberstadt CL IV is technically an attack aircraft, it looks like the standard observation aircraft of the First World War, with pilot in front and armed observer in back. Early in the war, it became obvious that the aircraft and the artillery battery required the same map to be successful. The British developed a pair of maps with numbered and lettered 400-yard......
Audio by NMUSAF PA | National Museum of the U.S. Air Force | 05.23.2013
One Foreign Materiel Exploitation (FME) story during the war involved the synchronized machine gun. French pilot Roland Garros and his mechanic armored his prop with steel plates to enable a machine gun fire through it. He said about one in 10 bullets would ricochet. Garros downed several German aircraft with it before going down behind enemy lines. The Germans tried to copy his design with......
Audio by NMUSAF PA | National Museum of the U.S. Air Force | 05.23.2013
The Germans used basically the same rotary aircraft engine as the French and the British, because they licensed it before the war. As the Fokker Triplane’s Oberursel engine became harder to replace later in the conflict, the German ace Josef Jacobs used Foreign Materiel Acquisition (FMA) to solve the problem. He offered a case of champagne to any soldiers that brought him an allied rotary......
Audio by NMUSAF PA | National Museum of the U.S. Air Force | 05.23.2013
When World War I started, all the warring powers had airplanes, but lacked in a complete understanding of their potential. British and French aviators made critical reconnaissance observations that helped save 100,000 British troops from capture at Mons and win the First Battle of the Marne. One of the most difficult tasks was getting ground commanders to believe them. The French aviators took......
Audio by NMUSAF PA | National Museum of the U.S. Air Force | 05.23.2013
Wilbur Wright enabled the first use of airplanes in combat by teaching two Italian officers to fly in 1909. The Italians used airplanes in Libya during the Italo-Turkish War of 1911. That conflict marked the first use of reconnaissance aircraft (a Bleriot XI on Oct. 23, 1911) and the first bombing attack (a German Etrich Taube on Nov. 1, 1911). The Italians even took photographs from their......
Audio by NMUSAF PA | National Museum of the U.S. Air Force | 05.23.2013
Air intelligence did not begin with the Wright Brothers. It initially became possible because of the Montgolfier brothers’ first manned balloon flight on 21 November 1783. Count Pilatre de Rozier and Marquis d’Arlandes ascended up to 3,000 feet in a hot air balloon and traveled for five miles (see model above you). Eleven years later, the French first used the balloon in combat. The Battle......
Audio by NMUSAF PA | National Museum of the U.S. Air Force | 05.23.2013
The National Museum of the United States Air Force began in 1923, not as a tourist attraction, but as an educational tool for Army engineers to study aeronautical engineering techniques from around the world. In the ensuing years, the museum also served as a place to study the application of air power, ballistic missiles and the contributions the Air Force made to the space race. Since 1996,......
