Western Front · Air Superiority · 1914–1918

The Fighter Pendulum

Eight swings in four years. Each one starts with somebody solving a problem the other side had not solved yet — how to fire forward, how to organise squadrons, how to build engines — and ends when the answer arrives in numbers. The same treatment from 1903 to 1955 is here.

Germany holds the edge Allies hold the edge Contested
I Aug 1914 – Mar 1915

No fighters, only armed observers

Contested

Aeroplanes went to war as eyes for the artillery. Crews shot at each other with rifles, pistols, shotguns and steel flechettes; one British crew carried a grapnel to snag enemy wings. The problem nobody had solved was the obvious one — a tractor aeroplane cannot fire forward through its own propeller.

Nothing to fieldNeither side had a fighter. Germany's armed two-seaters were doing the same job as the Voisin, no better.

Photograph of a Voisin III
FRANCE

Voisin III

In use 1914

A steel-framed pusher: engine behind the crew, so the gunner in the nose had a clear field of fire. Slow and ungainly, but it scored the first confirmed air-to-air kill of the war — Sgt Joseph Frantz and Corporal Louis Quénault, 5 October 1914. Quénault emptied two 48-round Hotchkiss magazines, then finished the job with a rifle.

Crew
2
Layout
Pusher biplane, 2 bays
Engine
Salmson M.9 — 9-cylinder water-cooled radial piston engine
Power
120–130 hp Salmson M.9 (contested)
Max speed
105 km/h
Ceiling
3,500 m
Climb
1,000 m in 12 min
Endurance
4 h 30
Wingspan
14.74 m
Length
9.50 m
Wing area
49.7 m²
Empty wt
950 kg
Loaded wt
1,350 kg
Wing loading
27.2 kg/m²
Armament
1 × 8 mm Hotchkiss M1909
Built
1,350+
II Apr – Jun 1915

Garros bolts wedges to his propeller

Edge — Allies

Roland Garros, the designer Raymond Saulnier and the mechanic Jules Hue fitted steel deflector plates to his propeller blades and simply fired through the arc, accepting that some rounds would hit wood. It was the fallback: Saulnier had been working on a proper synchroniser since 1914 and his Hotchkiss installation would not run reliably. Crude, dangerous, and it worked: three victories in eighteen days. On 18 April 1915 he was forced down behind German lines and the machine was captured intact.

No answer yetGarros's Morane came down behind German lines on 18 April 1915 and was at Fokker's works within days.

Photograph of a Morane-Saulnier Type L
FRANCE

Morane-Saulnier Type L

Modified Apr 1915

A two-seat parasol scout, flown solo and turned into the first practical single-seat fighter by a workshop bodge — hence the crew of 2 below, which is the type, not Garros's machine. Its real significance was the proof: an aeroplane you aim by pointing beats a gunner swivelling in a cockpit.

Crew
2
Layout
Parasol monoplane
Engine
Le Rhône 9C — 9-cylinder air-cooled rotary piston engine
Power
80 hp
Max speed
125 km/h
Ceiling
≈4,000 m
Climb
1,000 m in 8 min
Endurance
≈2 h 30
Wingspan
11.20 m
Length
6.88 m
Wing area
18.3 m²
Empty wt
393 kg
Loaded wt
668 kg
Wing loading
36.5 kg/m²
Armament
1 × 8 mm Hotchkiss M1909, through steel deflector wedges
Built
600
III Jul 1915 – Jan 1916

The Fokker Scourge

Edge — Germany

Fokker's team answered Garros with a proper cam-driven synchroniser that stopped the gun whenever a blade crossed the muzzle. First synchronised victory: Ltn Kurt Wintgens, 1 July 1915 (uncredited — it fell in Allied lines); first credited, 15 July. Boelcke and Immelmann turned it into a reputation. The edge was thinner than the name suggests: about fifteen Eindeckers were operational at the end of July 1915 and forty by December, so July is where the answer appears and the autumn is where it bites. By 14 January 1916 the RFC ordered that every reconnaissance machine fly with three escorts, and MPs were calling British aircrew "Fokker fodder" in the Commons.

Photograph of a Fokker E.III Eindecker
GERMANY

Fokker E.III Eindecker

Numbers from Aug 1915

A mediocre aeroplane — wing-warping controls, an unreliable rotary, no better than the scouts it hunted. It dominated for six months purely because it was the only machine in the sky whose gun pointed where the pilot pointed.

Crew
1
Layout
Wing-warping monoplane
Engine
Oberursel U.I — 9-cyl.air-cooled rotary piston engine
Power
100 hp
Max speed
140 km/h
Ceiling
3,600 m
Climb
3.3 m/s
Endurance
1 h 30
Wingspan
9.52 m
Length
7.20 m
Wing area
16.0 m²
Empty wt
399 kg
Loaded wt
610 kg
Wing loading
38.1 kg/m²
Armament
1 × 7.92 mm lMG 08/15 "Spandau", synchronised, offset to starboard
Built
416 (all Eindecker marks)

No answer to the synchroniserNothing in Allied service could aim by pointing. The stopgap was formation flying and escorts — three per reconnaissance machine from January 1916.

IV Jan – Aug 1916

Two ways round a propeller

Edge — Allies

Without a synchroniser of their own, the Allies went round the problem twice: put the engine behind the pilot, or mount the gun above the top wing. Both types outflew the Eindecker comfortably. The answer arrives in January–February 1916; the RAF Museum dates the actual restoration of Allied superiority to about May, so read the first months of this era as contested rather than won. Verdun and the Somme were fought under Allied air superiority. Germany's response was organisational — the Jagdstaffeln, dedicated single-seat fighter squadrons formed from August 1916, and Boelcke's Dicta, the first written air-combat doctrine.

Germany's reply was organisationalNot a new aeroplane but a new unit: the Jagdstaffeln, formed from August 1916, plus Boelcke's Dicta. The Albatros arrived a month later.

Photograph of a Nieuport 11
FRANCE

Nieuport 11 "Bébé"

Service Jan 1916

Tiny, light sesquiplane with a Lewis gun on the top wing firing over the arc. Concentrated in fighter escadrilles over Verdun from February 1916, it took the initiative back on climb and agility rather than firepower. French machines carried the gun on a fixed bracket; changing the 47-round drum at altitude was a two-handed job in the slipstream.

Crew
1
Layout
Sesquiplane (narrow lower wing)
Engine
Le Rhône 9C — nine-cylinder air-cooled rotary engine
Power
80 hp
Max speed
162 km/h
Ceiling
5,000 m
Climb
2,000 m in 8 min 30 s
Endurance
2 h 30
Wingspan
7.52 m
Length
5.50 m
Wing area
13.3 m²
Empty wt
320 kg
Loaded wt
480 kg
Wing loading
36.1 kg/m²
Armament
1 × .303 in Lewis on a fixed overwing mount
Built
Not reliably recorded
Photograph of an Airco D.H.2
BRITAIN

Airco D.H.2

Service Feb 1916

A single-seat pusher — engine and propeller behind the pod, gun in the nose with nothing in front of it. Twitchy enough to be nicknamed "the Spinning Incinerator" by trainees, but No. 24 Squadron under Lanoe Hawker broke the Eindecker's run with it.

Crew
1
Layout
Pusher biplane
Engine
Gnôme Monosoupape — 9-cylinder rotary engine
Power
100 hp
Max speed
150 km/h
Ceiling
4,267 m
Climb
3,050 m in 24 min 45 s
Endurance
2 h 45 min
Wingspan
8.61 m
Length
7.67 m
Wing area
23.1 m²
Empty wt
428 kg
Loaded wt
654 kg
Wing loading
28.3 kg/m²
Armament
1 × .303 in Lewis gun
Built
453
V Sep 1916 – May 1917

Albatros, and Bloody April

Edge — Germany

Jasta 2 received its first six Albatros scouts on 16 September 1916 and scored with them the next day. Those were D.Is; the D.II that replaced them shared the same idea and outnumbered it four to one by January 1917. For the first time one fighter was fast, strong and twin-gunned at once. The peak came in April 1917: the RFC lost somewhere between 245 and 285 aircraft depending on how a loss is counted, with 211 aircrew killed or missing and 108 taken prisoner, against about 66 German machines. The comparison is not quite like for like — a further 75-odd British machines were brought down by anti-aircraft fire, with no counterpart in the German figure. New British pilots were arriving with a handful of solo hours and lasting under three weeks.

Photograph of an Albatros D.II
GERMANY

Albatros D.II

Service Sep 1916

Plywood semi-monocoque fuselage, a big water-cooled six, and two synchronised Spandaus. Not especially nimble — it fought by diving, firing and climbing away, which is exactly what the new Jasta doctrine asked of it.

Crew
1
Layout
Biplane, plywood semi-monocoque
Engine
Mercedes D.III — 6-cyl. water-cooled inline
Power
160 hp
Max speed
175 km/h
Ceiling
≈5,180 m
Climb
≈1,000 m in 4 min
Endurance
≈1 h 30
Wingspan
8.50 m
Length
7.40 m
Wing area
24.5 m²
Empty wt
637 kg
Loaded wt
888 kg
Wing loading
36.2 kg/m²
Armament
2 × 7.92 mm lMG 08/15 "Spandau", synchronised
Built
291
Photograph of an Albatros D.III
GERMANY

Albatros D.III

Service Jan 1917

The Bloody April aircraft — in service from December 1916. Its narrow lower wing was copied from Nieuport to improve the view downward, and its single spar sat too far aft, letting the wing twist: ribs and leading edges failed in prolonged dives. Every D.III was grounded from 27 January to 19 February 1917, six weeks before the month it is named for, and pilots were then formally warned off steep dives in a front-line fighter.

Crew
1
Layout
Sesquiplane, plywood semi-monocoque
Engine
Mercedes D.IIIa — 6-cyl. water-cooled inline
Power
175 hp
Max speed
175 km/h
Ceiling
≈5,500 m
Climb
≈1,000 m in 4 min
Endurance
≈2 h
Wingspan
9.05 m
Length
7.33 m
Wing area
20.5 m²
Empty wt
695 kg
Loaded wt
886 kg
Wing loading
43.2 kg/m²
Armament
2 × 7.92 mm lMG 08/15 "Spandau", synchronised
Built
≈1,340 German-built
Photograph of a SPAD S.VII
FRANCE

SPAD S.VII

Service Sep 1916

The one Allied fighter of this period that could meet an Albatros on its own terms — heavy, fast, superb in a dive, indifferent in a turn. Good aircraft existed on the Allied side; the trouble was that most RFC work was still being flown by B.E.2s and F.E.2bs.

Crew
1
Layout
Biplane
Engine
Hispano-Suiza 8Aa — V-8 water-cooled
Power
150 hp
Max speed
193 km/h
Ceiling
5,500 m
Climb
2,000 m in 6 min 40 s
Endurance
2 h 40
Wingspan
7.82 m
Length
6.08 m
Wing area
17.9 m²
Empty wt
500 kg
Loaded wt
705 kg
Wing loading
39.5 kg/m²
Armament
1 × .303 in Vickers, synchronised
Built
≈6,000
Photograph of a Sopwith Triplane
BRITAIN

Sopwith Triplane

Service Feb 1917

Three narrow wings: outstanding climb and an unusually good view. In British service flown only by RNAS squadrons — a French naval escadrille took seventeen, and a handful went to Russia and Greece — — Naval 10's "Black Flight" made its name on it — and built in small numbers, but it frightened the Germans into ordering triplanes of their own.

Crew
1
Layout
Triplane
Engine
Clerget 9B — 9-cylinder air-cooled rotary piston engine
Power
130 hp
Max speed
188 km/h
Ceiling
6,248 m
Climb
1,830 m in 5 min 50 s
Endurance
2 h 45 min
Wingspan
8.08 m
Length
5.74 m
Wing area
21.5 m²
Empty wt
499 kg
Loaded wt
699 kg
Wing loading
32.5 kg/m²
Armament
1 × .303 in Vickers machine gun
Built
147
VI Jun 1917 – Mar 1918

The Allied big three arrive at once

Edge — Allies

Within about eight weeks the Allies fielded three genuinely modern fighters, all with 200-ish horsepower and twin guns, and all backed by factories. Germany's reply was the Dr.I — a superb dogfighter that was too slow, grounded twice for wing failures, and built in tiny numbers — while the Albatros D.V turned out to be barely better than the D.III it replaced. This is the longest single swing of the war.

Photograph of a Fokker Dr.I
GERMANY

Fokker Dr.I

Service Sep 1917

Exceptional climb and turn at low level, and Richthofen died in one — but it was slower than every Allied scout it faced, and Idflieg grounded the whole type from 2 to 28 November 1917 after Gontermann's and Pastor's top wings failed. Roughly 320 built against thousands of Camels. Famous, not decisive.

Crew
1
Layout
Triplane, cantilever wings
Engine
Oberursel Ur.II — 9-cylinder air-cooled rotary piston engine
Power
110 hp
Max speed
165 km/h
Ceiling
6,100 m
Climb
5.7 m/s
Endurance
≈1 h 30
Wingspan
7.19 m
Length
5.77 m
Wing area
18.7 m²
Empty wt
406 kg
Loaded wt
586 kg
Wing loading
31.3 kg/m²
Armament
2 × 7.92 mm Maschinengewehr 08 "Spandau" machine guns
Built
320
Photograph of a Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5a
BRITAIN

R.A.F. S.E.5a

Service Jun 1917

Fast, stable and strong in a dive — a gun platform rather than an acrobat, and forgiving enough that an average pilot could fight in it. The choice of most of the high-scoring British aces: Mannock, McCudden, Bishop.

Crew
1
Layout
Biplane
Engine
Wolseley W.4a Viper — V-8 water-cooled
Power
200 hp
Max speed
222 km/h
Ceiling
5,182 m
Climb
≈3,050 m in 13 min
Endurance
≈2 h 30
Wingspan
8.10 m
Length
6.38 m
Wing area
22.7 m²
Empty wt
640 kg
Loaded wt
878 kg
Wing loading
38.7 kg/m²
Armament
1 × .303 in Vickers (Constantinesco gear) + 1 × .303 in Lewis on Foster mount
Built
5,205
Photograph of a Sopwith Camel
BRITAIN

Sopwith Camel

Service Jul 1917

Engine, guns, pilot and fuel packed into the front seven feet, so the rotary's gyroscopic torque snapped it right almost instantly — lethal to novices, unbeatable in the hands of someone who understood it. Credited with more victories than any other Allied type.

Crew
1
Layout
Biplane
Engine
Clerget 9B — 9-cylinder air-cooled rotary piston engine
Power
130 hp
Max speed
182 km/h
Ceiling
5,791 m
Climb
5.5 m/s
Endurance
≈2 h 30
Wingspan
8.53 m
Length
5.72 m
Wing area
21.5 m²
Empty wt
422 kg
Loaded wt
659 kg
Wing loading
30.7 kg/m²
Armament
2 × .303 in Vickers, synchronised
Built
5,490
Photograph of a SPAD S.XIII
FRANCE

SPAD S.XIII

Service mid-1917

The mass-production answer: fast, tough, poor at low speed, and turned out in quantities nothing German could match. Flown by France, Italy, Belgium, and by fifteen of the sixteen pursuit squadrons of the American Expeditionary Force.

Crew
1
Layout
Biplane
Engine
Hispano-Suiza 8Ba/Bb — V-8 water-cooled (220 hp 8Be from 1918)
Power
200 hp
Max speed
211 km/h
Ceiling
6,800 m
Climb
1,000 m in 2 min 20 s
Endurance
2 h
Wingspan
8.25 m
Length
6.25 m
Wing area
21.1 m²
Empty wt
602 kg
Loaded wt
856 kg
Wing loading
40.6 kg/m²
Armament
2 × .303 in Vickers, synchronised
Built
8,472
VII Apr – Aug 1918

The second Fokker scourge

Edge — Germany, on quality

Germany did something no other air service did: in January 1918 it flew a competitive fighter trial at Adlershof and let front-line pilots, Richthofen among them, choose the winner. The D.VII reached the front in late April. It was the last clear German technical lead of the war — and by then it was a lead in quality only, against a growing Allied numerical advantage.

Photograph of a Fokker D.VII
GERMANY

Fokker D.VII

Service late Apr 1918

Thick cantilever wings needing almost no bracing, docile handling, and the ability to hang on its propeller and fire upwards without stalling. With the 185 hp BMW IIIa it still had performance at 5,000 m where the SPADs ran out of air; the Mercedes-engined machines were meaningfully slower and lower-flying than the BMW ones, which is why the card below carries both engines. Its real achievement was making ordinary pilots dangerous. Article IV of the Armistice named it specifically — the only aircraft type the Allies demanded by name: “firstly all of the D 7's and all the night bombing machines”.

Crew
1
Layout
Biplane, thick cantilever wings
Engine
Mercedes D.III — 6-cyl. water-cooled inline; 185 hp BMW IIIa on the D.VIIF
Power
160 hp
Max speed
189 km/h
Ceiling
6,000 m
Climb
1,000 m in 4 min 15 s (markedly better on the BMW IIIa)
Endurance
≈1 h 30
Wingspan
8.90 m
Length
6.95 m
Wing area
20.5 m²
Empty wt
670 kg
Loaded wt
906 kg
Wing loading
44.2 kg/m²
Armament
2 × 7.92 mm lMG 08/15 "Spandau", synchronised
Built
≈1,700 by the Armistice; ≈3,300 eventually
Photograph of a Siemens-Schuckert D-series scout
GERMANY

Siemens-Schuckert D.IV

Service Aug 1918

Geared counter-rotary engine, and the best rate of climb of any fighter in the war — it could reach heights no Allied scout could follow. Chronic engine and lubricant trouble held it to roughly 120 airframes. A glimpse of what Germany could no longer manufacture. Pictured: the near-identical D.III it was developed from.

Crew
1
Layout
Biplane
Engine
Siemens-Halske Sh.III — 11-cyl. air-cooled geared counter-rotary
Power
160 PS (158 hp)
Max speed
190 km/h
Ceiling
8,000 m
Climb
6,000 m in under 14 min 30 s
Endurance
2 h
Wingspan
8.35 m
Length
5.70 m
Wing area
15.1 m²
Empty wt
540 kg
Loaded wt
735 kg
Wing loading
48.7 kg/m²
Armament
2 × 7.92 mm (0.31 in) LMG 08/15 machine guns
Built
123
Photograph of a Sopwith 5F.1 Dolphin
BRITAIN

Sopwith 5F.1 Dolphin

Service early 1918

Backstaggered wings with the pilot's head through the top-wing gap, a Hispano engine and up to four guns. Fast and a fine high-altitude fighter, but disliked — pilots feared being decapitated in a turnover. The production figure flatters it: around 1,500 of the 2,072 airframes were sitting in store waiting for engines at the Armistice and were scrapped.

Crew
1
Layout
Biplane, negative (back) stagger
Engine
Hispano-Suiza 8B — V-8 water-cooled geared piston engine
Power
200 hp
Max speed
194 km/h
Ceiling
6,401 m
Climb
3,050 m in 16 min 30 s
Endurance
2 h
Wingspan
9.91 m
Length
6.78 m
Wing area
24.4 m²
Empty wt
635 kg
Loaded wt
903 kg
Wing loading
37.0 kg/m²
Armament
2 × .303 in Vickers, synchronised; up to 2 × .303 in Lewis overwing
Built
2,072 built; ≈500–600 in service
VIII Aug – Nov 1918

Decided by numbers, not aeroplanes

Edge — Allies

The last swing is not a technical one. Germany ended the war holding the best all-round fighter and the best-climbing fighter, and lost the air anyway. Allied factories, fuel and a functioning training pipeline outran German quality: by autumn 1918 German squadrons were flying on ersatz lubricants, short of petrol, and posting pilots with a fraction of the hours their opponents had. The pendulum stopped swinging because one side ran out of the means to push it.

Photograph of a Fokker D.VIII
GERMANY

Fokker E.V / D.VIII

Service Aug 1918

A cantilever parasol monoplane — clean, quick and years ahead in layout. Grounded within weeks after wing failures traced to sloppy factory workmanship, back in service in October, and out of the war before it mattered. Allied pilots called it the Flying Razor.

Why 204 km/h on 110 hp? Drag, not power — and yes, the single wing is most of the answer. The Dr.I above used the same Oberursel Ur.II and managed 165 km/h, because it dragged three wings, four sets of interplane struts, a cat's cradle of bracing wire and all the aerodynamic interference between stacked surfaces through the air. Fokker had proved on the D.VII that a deep-section cantilever wing could carry itself with no external bracing at all, so the D.VIII got one wing, two cabane struts and nothing else. Same engine, roughly 40 km/h more — and it does it on 10.7 m² of wing against the triplane's 18.7, which is why its wing loading is the highest on this page.

Crew
1
Layout
Parasol monoplane, cantilever wing
Engine
Oberursel UR.II — 9-cyl. air-cooled rotary piston engine
Power
110 hp
Max speed
204 km/h
Ceiling
6,000 m
Climb
8.0 m/s
Endurance
1 h 30
Wingspan
8.34 m
Length
5.86 m
Wing area
10.7 m²
Empty wt
405 kg
Loaded wt
605 kg
Wing loading
56.5 kg/m²
Armament
2 × 7.92 mm lMG 08/15 "Spandau", synchronised
Built
≈381 ordered, ≈85 delivered
Photograph of a Sopwith 7F.1 Snipe
BRITAIN

Sopwith 7F.1 Snipe

Service Sep 1918

The intended answer to the D.VII, and probably its equal: a Camel with a bigger engine, a better view and manners. It reached only a few squadrons before the Armistice, then served the RAF into the 1920s.

Crew
1
Layout
Biplane
Engine
Bentley BR2 — nine-cylinder rotary engine
Power
230 hp
Max speed
195 km/h
Ceiling
5,944 m
Climb
1,980 m in 5 min 10 s
Endurance
3 h
Wingspan
9.47 m
Length
6.05 m
Wing area
25.2 m²
Empty wt
595 kg
Loaded wt
916 kg
Wing loading
36.3 kg/m²
Armament
2 × 0.303 in (7.7 mm) Vickers machine guns
Built
497

Three different things "best" can mean

Best on paper

The Fokker Dr.I and the Siemens-Schuckert D.IV could out-turn and out-climb everything they met. Both were built in the hundreds and changed nothing. Performance without production is a footnote.

Best in the event

The Sopwith Camel and the SPAD S.XIII — neither the fastest nor the sweetest to fly, but present in thousands, in the right hands, at the right time. Most of the shooting was done by these.

Best at moving the line

The Fokker E.III, the Albatros D.II and the Fokker D.VII. Each arrived with something the other side had no answer to — a synchroniser, two guns on a strong airframe, a wing that forgave — and each bought roughly six months of superiority.

What the pendulum leaves out

One front of several

This tracks the Western Front only. Italy, Palestine, Mesopotamia, the Eastern Front and the naval air war all ran to different clocks. Types written off as obsolete in France were still doing real work over the Isonzo or the Sinai a year later, and the Austro-Hungarian, Italian and Russian services followed their own supply curves entirely — a Nieuport 11 that was hopelessly outclassed in Flanders by late 1916 was a perfectly serviceable fighter elsewhere.

The aeroplane was rarely the main variable

Pilot training, formation tactics and sheer numbers moved the line at least as much as any airframe did. The Fokker Scourge was won with a mediocre aeroplane that happened to carry the only working synchroniser. Bloody April was lost as much in the RFC's training schools — pilots posted to France with a dozen solo hours and no gunnery — as it was over Arras.

Organisation counted as an invention

Two of the biggest swings owe nothing to a wing or an engine. Germany's Jagdstaffeln and Boelcke's Dicta concentrated fighters where they mattered and wrote down how to use them, a year before anyone else did. The final swing was won in Allied factories and flying schools, not in a design office.

Oddments

Things that turned out to be true.

Roland Garros

The French Open is named after a fighter pilot

When Stade Français donated seven acres in the 16th for France's 1928 Davis Cup defence, it attached one condition: the ground had to carry the name of a club member — Roland Garros, the first man to fly the Mediterranean (1913), and the man who invented the fighter aeroplane by bolting steel wedges to his propeller. He was not there to see it. Shot down and killed on 5 October 1918, one day before his 30th birthday and five weeks before the Armistice.

Sopwith Camel

It killed almost as many of its own pilots as the enemy's

385 Camel pilots died from non-combat causes against 413 killed in combat — accidents at the front, on ferry flights and in training, not training alone. Separately, and this figure is training only, the Camel accounted for about 16.5% of all British flying-training fatalities, more than any other type. A mishandled turn on take-off, or a stall in a left bank, put a low-hour pilot straight into a spin.

Naming

"Camel" was never the official name

A metal fairing was humped over the twin gun breeches to stop them freezing at altitude. Squadrons took one look and called it the Camel. The nickname swallowed the type's real designation, Sopwith F.1, so completely that almost nobody uses it.

Fokker D.VIII

Its wings were built by a piano factory

E.V wings were built at the Gebrüder Perzina Pianoforte Fabrik — a piano works Fokker had bought outright in 1916, so the blame was entirely in-house. Inferior timber went in, the spar caps were set too far apart, and when the finished spars proved too deep to pass through the ribs, the surplus was simply planed off. Wings started coming apart in the air. Fokker publicly blamed the army technical bureau for forcing a strengthened rear spar on him; properly built, the original wing tested with a healthy margin.

Parachutes

The most-quoted line in the air war has no document behind it

Everyone knows the one: British command withheld parachutes because having one might impair the fighting spirit of pilots. Researchers have gone through the War Office records repeatedly and no such document has ever been produced. It is usually pinned on Trenchard, on no evidence. What is on the record is duller: the Calthrop Guardian Angel was a heavy static-line rig built to hang off a balloon basket, and balloon observers did get them throughout. Nobody had a free-fall backpack that fitted in a scout's cockpit until Germany fielded the Heinecke in mid-1918 — at which point the new RAF started urgently trying to buy one.

Siemens-Halske Sh.III

An engine that ran both ways at once

The cylinders and propeller turned one way at 900 rpm; the crankshaft turned the other way at 900 rpm, through a 2:1 bevel gear. High combustion frequency for power, low propeller speed for efficiency, and the opposed rotating masses largely cancelling the gyroscopic effect that made the Camel so vicious. Siemens-built examples seized their pistons after seven to ten hours.

Rotary engines

The engine sprayed laxative into the pilot's face

A rotary's crankcase is part of the fuel path, so petroleum oil would dissolve straight into the mixture. Castor oil would not — so castor oil it was, in a total-loss system that flung up to two gallons an hour into the slipstream and the open cockpit behind it. Castor oil's active component, ricinoleic acid, is a powerful laxative. Pilots breathed and swallowed it for hours. The silk scarf was for wiping goggles; the blackberry brandy was for the other end.

23 November 1916

One of the men who broke the Fokker Scourge was the Red Baron's eleventh

Major Lanoe Hawker VC led No. 24 Squadron, whose D.H.2s were part of ending the Eindecker's run — the credit belongs collectively to the D.H.2, the F.E.2b and the Nieuport, not to one man. Over Bapaume he fell into a circling duel with Manfred von Richthofen that ran more than half an hour and cost Richthofen 900 rounds. I discovered that I was not meeting a beginner, Richthofen wrote. Hawker ran low on fuel, broke for his own lines, and was killed by a single round to the back of the head.

Manfred von Richthofen

The Red Baron scored most of his kills in a biplane

Of 80 victories, 19 came in triplanes — 17 in the Dr.I and two in the F.I prototype. The rest were flown in Albatros scouts and a Halberstadt D.II. The triplane is the aircraft everyone pictures because it is the one he died in, which says something about how reputations in this war were made.

Fokker D.VII

The only aircraft ever named in an armistice

Article IV of the Armistice of Compiègne itemised what Germany had to hand over: guns, aircraft, locomotives, lorries — and, specifically, firstly all of the D 7's. No other type was singled out by name. (It was the Armistice, not the Treaty of Versailles, which names no aircraft at all.) It remains the most backhanded compliment ever paid to an aeroplane.

Nieuport 11

Reloading meant standing up in the cockpit

The Lewis gun sat on the top wing to clear the propeller arc, which solved the aiming problem and created a new one: a fresh 47-round drum had to be fitted by hand, at altitude, in the slipstream, with one hand still on the stick. Some pilots simply did not bother after the first drum ran dry.

Notes — Dates are first meaningful front-line service, not first flight; types often overlapped by months, so the bands above mark where the balance sat rather than hard cut-offs. Casualty and production figures vary between sources and are given as the commonly cited ranges. Speeds are approximate maxima at low altitude.

Stat cards — figures are taken from the specification tables of the linked Wikipedia articles and converted to metric where the source was imperial; wing loading is calculated from loaded weight over wing area. A leading ≈ marks a commonly cited figure that is not in the source specification table. Two corrections: Wikipedia's Albatros D.II and D.III specification tables describe the Austro-Hungarian Oeffag-built machines (Austro-Daimler engines, Schwarzlose guns), so the German Mercedes-engined figures used here come from standard references instead; and the S.E.5 table gives the 150 hp S.E.5 rather than the 200 hp S.E.5a described on this page.

Reviewed 5 September 2026 against three independent fact-checks (Claude, GPT-5 and Gemini); roughly thirty corrections were applied, the largest being the parachute Oddment, the Camel's non-combat-versus-training death toll, the Hotchkiss guns on the Voisin and Garros's Morane, the Albatros D.III's January 1917 grounding, and the Dr.I's speed and single grounding order.

Photographs and aircraft names link to Wikipedia; images are Wikimedia Commons lead photographs, desaturated for consistency — hover or tab to one to see it in colour. Several show preserved airframes or flying replicas rather than wartime machines.