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DeathHand

Let It All Bleed Out
The First World War saw the use of air power in conflict on a large scale for the first time. Military aviation was still relatively new in 1914. Its uses were not yet clear, and the Royal Flying Corps – the air arm of the British Army – was very small in size. Despite this, once the war was underway, serving in the Royal Flying Corps – or RFC – was an attractive prospect for those living in the trenches on the Western Front.

The main role of military aircraft throughout the war was to undertake aerial reconnaissance in support of ground forces. Information about the enemy was invaluable. Needless to say, neither side wanted the other spying on them. As a result, aerial combat soon began when rival aircraft encountered each other. Initially, handheld firearms were used and some used bricks and stones to drop on enemy planes.

Fighter aircraft (or Scouts, as they were called then), fitted with machine guns, particularly synchronised dual machine guns , were soon developed. In July 1915, the deadly German Fokker Eindecker became operational. It allowed the Germans to dominate the air war by the end of that year. New German aircraft meant that the RFC suffered very heavy casualties in the early months of 1917 – particularly during what became known as ‘Bloody April’, when the British lost 245 aircraft, 211 aircrew killed or missing and 108 as prisoners of war. The German Air Services recorded the loss of 66 aircraft during the same period.

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DH - 1 Dead Aviators of WW1 - British aviators.jpg


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DH - 2 Dead Aviators of WW1 - British aviators.jpg


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DH - 3 Dead Aviators of WW1 - German aviators.jpg


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DH - 4 Dead Aviators of WW1 - German Crewman of a Zeppelin.jpg


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DH - 5 Dead Aviators of WW1 - British Pilot.jpg


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WW1 Planes 1.jpg


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DH - 6 Dead Aviators of WW1 - RFC pilot and his Sopwith Pup, May 1918.jpg


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DH - 7 Dead Aviators of WW1 - British Airman.jpg


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DH - 8 Dead Aviators of WW1 - German aviators.jpg


10. Rear gunner is even armed with a slew of potato mashers.
German Halberstadt CL II.jpg
 
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SPHINCTERPUNCH

THE SPHINCTER PUNCHER!
The First World War saw the use of air power in conflict on a large scale for the first time. Military aviation was still relatively new in 1914. Its uses were not yet clear, and the Royal Flying Corps – the air arm of the British Army – was very small in size. Despite this, once the war was underway, serving in the Royal Flying Corps – or RFC – was an attractive prospect for those living in the trenches on the Western Front.

The main role of military aircraft throughout the war was to undertake aerial reconnaissance in support of ground forces. Information about the enemy was invaluable. Needless to say, neither side wanted the other spying on them. As a result, aerial combat soon began when rival aircraft encountered each other. Initially, handheld firearms were used and some used bricks and stones to drop on enemy planes.

Fighter aircraft (or Scouts, as they were called then), fitted with machine guns, particularly synchronised dual machine guns , were soon developed. In July 1915, the deadly German Fokker Eindecker became operational. It allowed the Germans to dominate the air war by the end of that year. New German aircraft meant that the RFC suffered very heavy casualties in the early months of 1917 – particularly during what became known as ‘Bloody April’, when the British lost 245 aircraft, 211 aircrew killed or missing and 108 as prisoners of war. The German Air Services recorded the loss of 66 aircraft during the same period.

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Awesome Post "DH" I love this Shit!!!
🤘🤟🤙...SP
 

-ToGGaF-

Forum Fag🖕
These planes always reminded me of toys or some kind of car on a carnival ride. They look so rickitty and ready to crash!
1675923914521.png
 

McM

ARSELING
These were brave men. I would never get on a paper plane like that. That would be too risky for me. New technology must first be mature. I bet some of those things went down without any shelling.
Yes, of course. The first engines were so weak they had always run at full throttle to keep the plane in the air. Crude inventions had to be made (like the weird rotary engine) to have enough airflow for cooling the motor. Water cooling was too heavy.. and so on.
 

Skull81

卐 People Hater 卐
Yes, of course. The first engines were so weak they had always run at full throttle to keep the plane in the air. Crude inventions had to be made (like the weird rotary engine) to have enough airflow for cooling the motor. Water cooling was too heavy.. and so on.
Not for people afraid of heights.
 

wiggins

Forum Veteran
These planes always reminded me of toys or some kind of car on a carnival ride. They look so rickitty and ready to crash!View attachment 657065
Until you look at the stats. Sopwith Camel could do 120 plus mph and pull 5 g's, albeit only for a short while as it slowed down really fast/lost energy.

No parachutes until later in the war due to the idea that the pilots would jump out rather than fight...

The start of the war, 1914, was only 11 years after the Wright brothers made their first flight...
 

-ToGGaF-

Forum Fag🖕
Until you look at the stats. Sopwith Camel could do 120 plus mph and pull 5 g's, albeit only for a short while as it slowed down really fast/lost energy.

No parachutes until later in the war due to the idea that the pilots would jump out rather than fight...

The start of the war, 1914, was only 11 years after the Wright brothers made their first flight...
Thanks for the informative reply 👍
 

markymark6373

Well Known Member
They didnt call them the ‘20 minuters’ for nothing, a new pilot with probably 4-5 hrs experience lasted approx 20 minutes in combat.
 

Guipago

Forum Veteran
Another great post @DeathHand I've done a bit of flying in fabric & string planes.
Useless fact: The motors on ww1 aircraft were lubricated with castor oil & with open valve trains the excess oil coated the pilot's face, when the guns were fired the gases from the ammunition blacked their faces, this let the ground crews know that 'their' pilot & plane might have got a kill. Castor oil has another effect on the human body, ingesting all that castor oil vapor gave them what they called 'dribble bum' don't what they did to counter that!
 

DeathHand

Let It All Bleed Out
Another great post @DeathHand I've done a bit of flying in fabric & string planes.
Useless fact: The motors on ww1 aircraft were lubricated with castor oil & with open valve trains the excess oil coated the pilot's face, when the guns were fired the gases from the ammunition blacked their faces, this let the ground crews know that 'their' pilot & plane might have got a kill. Castor oil has another effect on the human body, ingesting all that castor oil vapor gave them what they called 'dribble bum' don't what they did to counter that!
Yes, many of them had diarrhea from the Castrol oil vapors...then they'd land and quaff down some whiskey, maybe while on the throne.

Nice to see some vintage WWI photos. They are far and few between.
Yes, it is. I've had most of these for about 15 years (I just resize, change DPI and colour format, and adjust contrast and sharpness, and a few other things) but the credit for putting these, and many, many other WW1 photos goes to a guy named Drake Goodman (you can see his sig/watermark on most of the images). He went through many archives and somehow reproduced them (I think he was German), many in high quality. He had a website way back but I don't know if it still exists.

Any kind of flying was madly precarious 100 years ago, let alone flying in combat. In all the various nations’ fledgling air forces, ‘only’ 50,000 or so aircrew died during World War I, a tiny fraction of the nine million lives lost in the fighting overall. Nonetheless, airmen shared with the infantry a 70 per cent chance of injury or death.

Moreover, there were all kinds of other hardships in those rickety biplanes we can hardly imagine today, not least widespread diarrhoea among pilots who flew aircraft such as the Sopwith Pup, which had rotary engines spewing out castor oil. Pilots constantly inhaled the oil’s laxative mist, for which one of the remedies was brandy, though that wasn’t exactly conducive to flying safely, either.

In 1918, the life expectancy of new British pilots was just three weeks.

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DH - 9 Dead Aviators of WW1 - The bodies of two German aviators, Gefr. Kurt Kroner and his obs...jpg


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15. The Red Baron's squadron.
DH 6b - The Red Barons Squad.jpg


16. Edward "Fast Eddie" Vernon Rickenbacher - American flying Ace.
Eddie Richenbacker - USA.jpg


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DH - 13 Dead Aviators of WW1 - German aviators c. 1915.jpg


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DH - 14 Dead Aviators of WW1 - The battered body of Lt. W.P. Garnett, 60 Sqn RFC, lies before ...jpg


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WW1 Plane Weapons 1.jpg


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WW1 Plane Weapons 2.jpg
 
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wiggins

Forum Veteran
Another great post @DeathHand I've done a bit of flying in fabric & string planes.
Useless fact: The motors on ww1 aircraft were lubricated with castor oil & with open valve trains the excess oil coated the pilot's face, when the guns were fired the gases from the ammunition blacked their faces, this let the ground crews know that 'their' pilot & plane might have got a kill. Castor oil has another effect on the human body, ingesting all that castor oil vapor gave them what they called 'dribble bum' don't what they did to counter that!
That 'blak' face is enough to get you cancelled these days...

I used to read the Biggles books as a boy and Capt. WE Johns explained all about the caster oil stuff. Good old Ginger, Algy and Biggles, always gay and up for it...
 
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