homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation Rise of Flight - The First Great Air War I mean from a historical perspective---

Remember the story of the F-16 pilot, in Korea, who flew upside down into a mountain during IFR conditions?
Air Force insisted it was pilot error, but the wife said "No way!" and was brave enough to confront them on it. She took them to court. This woman took the United States Air Force to court! And won!
Turns out that they admitted there was a problem with the airplane, that they knew about. Rather then take down the whole fleet, they were waiting until their scheduled maintainance check-ups to fix them.
This guy had about ten thousand hours of jet fighter time, and didn't know he was upside down. And that was in an F-16. What chance would you have in a Nieuport 17?

I remember that story-I think I saw it on 60 Minutes a number of years ago.

Dart, I forgot to mention that what you described is referred to as "scud running" ---it's killed a whole bunch of pilots over the years. It usually leads to what we refer to as CFIT-controlled flight into terrain. We had one in an EMS ship a couple of years ago that happened at night...not from scud running though.

I'm just done with "bloody april" and "aces falling"

the impression I get---and things changed very fast in the war--is that pilots prayed for bad weather so they could sleep in. But if there was a push by either side, they went up regardless.

The real game change acomplished by the AC was recon, both by photos and real time with wireless later in the war. This enabled extremely complex use of artillery for the first time ever.

during the last great german push in 1918, the weather was espcially foul, and for the first time their was a concentrated effort by the allies to directly attack german troops on the roads-weather be damned. They flew so low the regular "archie" was useless, but machine gunners on the ground picked up the slack. The relentless strafing acutally had a big effect, as admitted by the german high command. The scout pilots hated ground attack, both because of the danger and the fact they were unlikely to "score", something all were obsessed with. Alot of the kills claimed were false, with some notable exceptions like Ricthofen---nearly every kill he claimed was confirmed.

Large scale air battles ensued when the weather let up a bit and nearly all the great aces were dead by the fall of 1918, or injured, Bishop being the exception.

also of note was the very nasty nature of high altitude flight, which they all seemed to hate. At 20,000 they froze, the AC would barely respond. Then as they came down the "defrost" pain was horrible both in the extremites and in the ears.

I'm sure some of you are much better read, please correct me if I have any of this wrong.

I highly recommend Combat Flying Clothing (http://www.amazon.com/Combat-Flying-Clot...9797&sr=1-2) for a very good description of high altitude flight and it's dangers regarding cold. It's sister book Combat Flying Equipment (http://www.amazon.com/COMBAT-FLYING-EQUIPMENT-PB-SWEETING/dp/156098502X/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_4) has a very good chapter on early oxygen systems and the hardships of high altitude flight with it. Both books focus on WW2, but have decent information on the historical evolution of technologies from WW1 or even earlier.

-Jenrick