Aircraft (Military)

In July and August of 1849, Austrian forces besieging the city of Venice launched some 200 pilotless balloons carrying bombs with time-delay fuses. The balloons were launched from land and from the Austrian warship SMS Vulcano. The bombs were filled with shrapnel and were intended to terrorize the civilian population of Venice.

The first attempt to launch the balloons was on July 12, 1849, but the wind was not favorable and the balloons were blown back to the Austrian lines. The second attempt, on August 22, 1849, was more successful. The balloons were able to reach Venice and some of the bombs exploded, causing some damage and casualties. However, the overall effect of the air raids was limited. The Venetians were able to shoot down many of the balloons, and the bombs that did explode caused relatively little damage.

The air raids against Venice were the first time in history that bombs were dropped from aircraft. They were a crude and ineffective weapon, but they marked the beginning of a new era in warfare.

The first military aircraft pilot in the United States was Lieutenant Thomas E. Selfridge. He was killed in a 1908 plane crash when Orville Wright lost control of their airplane at an altitude of 75 feet.

First use of aircraft in war was in 1911 when an Italian pilot took off from Libya to observe Turkish army lines during the Italo-Turkish War. The first dropping of a bomb from an aircraft in combat, happened on November 1, 1911 during the same conflict.

Corporal Frank S. Scott of the United States Army became the first enlisted man to die in an airplane crash on September 28, 1912. He and pilot Lt. Lewis C. Rockwell were killed in the crash of an Army Wright Model B at College Park, Maryland.

The first bombing expedition took place in early October 1914 at the start of World War I when British planes, taking off from Dunkirk, bombed Cologne railway station and destroy Germany's latest Zeppelin in its shed at Düsseldorf.

The first aerial raid on England took place on the night of January 19-20, 1915. Two Zeppelins, L 3 and L 4 dropped their bombs on Great Yarmouth, Sheringham, King's Lynn and the surrounding villages, killing four and injuring 16. Material damage was estimated at £7,740.

British First World War poster of a Zeppelin above London at night

Aerial dogfights were fought with pistols before they figured out how to properly install machine guns into planes.

During 1915 single-seater planes acquired a machine gun, cunningly synchronized to fire between the blades of the revolving propeller.

Leutnant Kurt Wintgens (see above) became the first military fighter pilot to score a victory over an opposing aircraft on July 1, 1915. He was flying the synchronized machine-gun armed fighter plane, the Fokker M.5K/MG Eindecker. At 18:00 that evening he engaged a French Morane-Saulnier Type L "Parasol" two-seater, which was flown by one Capitaine Paul du Peuty, with Sous-Lieutenant de Boutiny as the observer. After a few minutes of combat with the Fokker, de Peuty was wounded in the lower right leg and shortly thereafter the Eindecker likewise wounded de Boutiny in the leg. Despite their injuries, the French aircrew landed their Morane Parasol safely, in friendly territory.

The actual aircraft used by Wintgens in his pioneering aerial engagement, his Fokker M.5K/MG 

The first U.S. air combat mission begun on March 19, 1916, when eight Curtiss "Jenny" planes of the First Aero Squadron took off from Columbus, New Mexico. They were on a support mission for the 7,000 U.S. troops under the command of General Pershing who had invaded Mexico to capture Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. The First Aero Squadron had been organized a year and a half earlier after the outbreak of World War I.

When Stephen W. Thompson shot down a German Albatros D.III fighter on February 5, 1918, he became the first member of the United States military to shoot down an enemy aircraft. The uniform that Thompson was wearing when he shot down the plane is on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force near Dayton, Ohio.

Stephen Thompson in the uniform he was wearing on Feb. 5, 1918. By Stephen W. Thompson - Wikipedia Commons

The most effective World War I fighter pilot was Manfred von Richthofen, known from the color of his plane as the Red Baron. Before being killed in action in 1918, he shot down 79 British and one Belgian aircraft.

By the end of World War I the U.S. had 740 airplanes in 45 squadrons, and more than 1200 aviators in France.

The first hostile aerial bombardment on American soil happened in 1921 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when white police forces took to the air to drop incendiary bombs and dynamite on the business district in the black neighborhood of Greenwood.

The Hawker Hurricane, the aircraft responsible for 60% of the Royal Air Force's air victories in the Battle of Britain, made its first flight on November 6, 1935.

The fatality rate was so high for airmen in the World War II years of 1942-1943, it was statistically impossible for a flight crew to finish a 25-mission tour in Europe.

On the night of March 24, 1944, 21 year old tail gunner of a Lancaster Bomber, Nicholas Alkemade, jumped from his aircraft after being shot down over Germany. He fell 18,000 feet without a parachute and survived with a sprained leg as his only injury.

The world’s first jet fighter, the German Messerschmitt Me 262, was brought into service in World War II in April 1944, too late to alter the course of the war. With a top speed of 540 mph it was faster than any Allied fighter — and even in its short life its pilots claimed 542 ‘kills’.

The Night Witches was a World War II German nickname for the all female aviators of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment. They would idle the engines near their target and glide to the bomb release point with only wind noise to reveal them. The Germans likened the sound to broomsticks, giving their nickname.

The World War II Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet was the world’s first, and only, mass produced, rocket-powered aircraft fighter. Developed by Nazi Germany, it had unsurpassed speed and climb rate for the time. However, it proved ineffective in engaging slower Allied aircraft as its target was reached and passed in seconds limiting its attack opportunities.

After the war, Messerschmitt Me 163's designer, Alexander Lippisch, helped take more than 1,500 Nazi scientists to work for the U.S. government,

The B-29 bomber program was one of the most expensive U.S. military projects during World War II, surpassing even the $2 billion cost of the Manhattan Project. The total cost of the B-29 Superfortress program amounted to about $3 billion, which would be roughly equivalent to $44.5 billion in today's dollars. 

The B-29 played a crucial role in the war, particularly in the Pacific Theater, with its long-range bombing capabilities. It was the only aircraft capable of carrying and delivering the atomic bombs that were being developed as part of the Manhattan Project​

The top flying ace for the United States during World War II was Dick Bong, who shot down 40 Japanese aircraft.

One of the first aircraft to be fitted with an ejection seat was the German Heinkel He 280 prototype jet fighter. While testing the He 280 during World War II, German pilot Helmut Schenk became the first person to use an ejection seat to make an emergency escape from an aircraft on January 13, 1942.

World War II fighter pilots in the South Pacific armed their airplanes while stationed with .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measuring 27 feet before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, he went through "the whole 9 yards", hence the term.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized the creation of the United States Air Force Academy on April 1, 1954. The youngest of the five United States service academies, its campus is located immediately north of Colorado Springs in El Paso County, Colorado.

The last dogfight between piston-engined fighter planes occurred in 1969 between F4U Corsairs and P-51 Mustangs during the four-day conflict between Honduras and El Salvador. 

The F-16 Fighting Falcon is the most numerous fixed-wing aircraft currently in military service, On January 20, 1974, the pilot Phil Oestricher decided to take off to avoid a potential crash during a ground test, marking an unplanned "first flight." However, the official first flight occurred on February 2, 1974, following repairs and planned procedures at the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB, California.

As part of Operation Linebacker II during the Vietnam War, 120 American B-52 Stratofortress bombers attacked Hanoi, including 78 launched from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam on December 26, 1972, the largest single combat launch in Strategic Air Command history.

Kelly Flinn was the, US Air Force's first female bomber pilot certified for combat. In 1997 she accepted a general discharge in order to avoid a court martial.

In 2011, China aired clips of the movie Top Gun on the news and tried to pass it off as the Chinese Air Force doing training exercises.

The United States Air Force maintains a fleet of Boeing E4-B "Doomsday" planes. They are capable of being airborne for a week, cost nearly $160,000 per hour for the Air Force to operate, and have a five mile long trailing wire antenna to communicate with nuclear submarines.

Source Lifestylesover50.com