He achieved three kills but was shot down by ground fire and landed behind German lines. Roland Garros, working with Morane Saulnier Aéroplanes, was the first to solve this problem by attaching steel deflector wedges to the propeller. įixed, forward-firing guns were found to be the most effective armament for a majority of World War I era fighter planes, but it was nearly impossible to fire them through the spinning propeller of one's own aircraft without destroying one's own plane. The need to stop reconnaissance that was being conducted by enemy aircraft rapidly led to the development of fighter planes, a class of aircraft designed specifically to destroy other aircraft. The pilot, Feldwebel Wilhelm Schlichting, was shot with a carbine wielded by observer Louis Quenault, who was riding in a Voisin Type 3 piloted by French Sergeant Joseph Frantz. The first recorded aircraft to be shot down by another aircraft, which occurred on October 5, 1914, was a German Aviatik. Early aerial combat consisted of aviators shooting at one another with hand-held weapons. Military aviation appeared in World War I when aircraft were initially used to spot enemy troop concentrations, field gun positions and movements.
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