World War OneWar in the air

Uses of aircrafts

Types of planes used

By Nasser Alsharif 9M

Dogfights

Zeppelins, blimps and dirigibles were a widely used in World War One. Their main purpose was for bombing the enemy, and while they were vulnerable to fire; they could demolish a building quite easily.

Hydrogen and helium balloons were used frequently in the western border for observing the enemy. This was because they were cheaper than planes.

Fighter planes made things dangerous for the crew of these large floating masses of gas as they could shoot them down from the air giving them no chance of escape. That was why crew members were given parachutes and tools to bring down the balloon quickly.

Balloons

Fighter planesDuring WW1, planes were armed with machine guns and  weren't very accurate or effective, but everybody used them.  They had two seats, one for the pilot and another for the person using the machine gun. This was a very difficult technique to use as there was usually a lack of communication between the two soldiers.

Towards the end of the war they built bomber planes that could hold two to three bombs each. So, to have any effect they had to build a lot of these types of planes. There were about 70 different types of planes used during the war.

BombingThe use of bombs was very important in World War 1. Bombing raids were done all the time. Bombers such as Zeppelins were extremely vulnerable to ground fire, but could level buildings in seconds.

Fast fighter planes and strong antiaircraft artillery made it hard to bomb during day hours, and it was hard to bomb during night hours due to the darkness. Strategic bombing was difficult to carry out. Still, there were over 9,000 casualties due to bombs.

Dogfights"Dogfight" means an aerial battle between two or more planes. Dogfights were a big part of World War 1. Since, as mentioned earlier, machine guns could not be built into the planes – as the war broke out soon after the invention of planes – a gunner had to try to communicate with the pilot to be able to engage the enemy. This made things difficult.

During the war, however, the planes kept improving, e.g.:• A British pilot, Louis Strange, developed a safety strap to allow the gunner

to stand and be able to fire all around the top of the plane. • Rolland Garros made it possible for deflector plates to be added to planes,

for machine guns to be used and for single seat fighters to be used.

With so many new developments for fighter planes, tactics were changed. Originally fighters had the 'lone wolf' tactic, now they travelled in groups and learned how to use clouds as cover when attacking, along with many more improvements.

My View On War in the Air during WW1

I think that while using aircraft to spy in the enemy was a very good idea, aircraft in general was too primitive back then to make a difference. All the

armies were too inexperienced in aerial fighting to affect the war down below.

The stalemate on the ground between the armies wasn’t heavily affected or reliant on the use of

aircraft and even if it wasn’t used I doubt a large difference would have been made.

By Nasser Alsharif 9M

Bibliography

•http://techcenter.davidson.k12.nc.us/group9/airwar.htm

•http://library.thinkquest.org/J0110426/wwI/ww1.html

•http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_were_aircraft_used_in_World_War_1

•http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_in_World_War_I