Long the "Princes of the Battlefield", military aircraft received their baptism of fire in World War 1, a war that saw a continuous evolution of the species. Monoplanes soon gave way to biplanes and these were followed further by triplanes for a time as engineers quickly adapted to the changing needs of the battlefield.
These pioneer airmen - essentially a throwback to mounted knights - duelled it out in the skies over Europe. Early fighter pilots were armed with nothing more than a personal sidearm or rifle and could be called upon to drop hand-held munitions over enemy trenches. Reconnaissance-minded platforms were forged into lethal machine gun-laden fighters. Multi-engine platforms now bristled with multiple machine gun positions and staggering bomb arrangements. The synchronized machine gun (set to fire through a spinning propeller bladed system) changed the war - and the future of the world for that matter - for good.
By World War 2, the world had changed enough to warrant new methods to waging the same old war. Cockpits were now enclosed and pressurized. Machine guns gave way to heavy caliber types or even replaced altogether by potent cannon armament. By the end of the conflict, bombers were regularly laying waste to cities, night-fighting by radar was the norm and rocket-propelled propulsion was unseated by advances made in jet technology. Fortunately for the generations, the war ended before it escalated into a new age.
The Cold War ushered in an all-new set of playing rules. With itchy fingers on the their respective triggers, the US and Soviet Union squared off across the globe. While never directly engaging in an all-out war, the psychological aspects were all there. Tense times bred new and deadlier forms of manslaughter by air. It was believed that the missile would negate the need for cannon armament in aircraft and it was seen that a day would come when the missile would unseat the fighter altogether. History showed otherwise.
By the end of the 21st Century, the aircraft was nothing like those heralded mounts piloted by forefathers. Stealth technology, supercruise capability, global positioning systems and fly-by-wire have turned the "flying coffins" of old into self-sustaining, multi-purpose platforms that seemingly dominate any modern battlefield. Far from hitting their ceiling, the aircraft continues to evolve today into the ultimate fighting machine with capabilities yet unheard - quite the far cry from when the first heavier-than-air flight occurred just over a century a go. |
