In 1931, Officer Gladys Maud Cockburn Lange, a Royal Air Force pilot in World War I, published a shocking photograph of an aerial battle in which a British Bristol biplane fighter collided with a German Fokker fighter during an aerial battle in 1916, causing both aircraft to crash and die. In 1931, Officer Gladys Maud Cockburn Lange, a Royal Air Force pilot in World War I, published a shocking photograph of an aerial battle. It was hailed as the most vividly realistic of all aviation records. It was said to have been taken from a camera attached to an airplane. The photos were published in British newspapers and other media after 1932 as Death in the Air - A Pilot's Combat Diary of the Battle of the Air. Some of the images were also used for book covers, and many people went wild buying the phenomenal images. In Britain, fighter pilots were portrayed as knights of World War I, and many became popular heroes. However, it wasn't until 1984 that the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in the U.S. received a donation of aerial combat images from a deceased friend, which were discovered to be forgeries.
Since World War I, fighter planes have fought in dog fligts at close range, with the first real aerial battle taking place during the Mexican Revolution in 1913. In World War I, aircraft were initially used for reconnaissance. In World War I, aircraft were initially used for reconnaissance, and then aerial combat at close range became more frequent. In addition, they began shooting at enemy aircraft with machine guns and other weapons. The first aerial combat by aircraft in World War I occurred in August 1914, when the Austro-Hungarian Empire fought the Battle of Zell against Serbia.
In World War I, the first French fighter equipped with a machine gun on its biplane wing shot down a German aircraft over France in October 1914. During World War I, in July 1915, German Fokker fighters with machine guns mounted on the nose of their planes went on a rampage that was dubbed the Fokker Punishment.
The Allies reestablished air superiority in January 1916 with new fighter aircraft, just in time for the Battle of the Somme and the end of the Fokker Punishment. In April 1917, the British Army Air Corps suffered heavy casualties in what was called "Bloody April. In April 1917, the British Army Air Corps suffered heavy casualties in what became known as the Bloody April. Gradually, the Allies overwhelmed the Germans in terms of both quantity and quality of air power, but until the end of the war, the Germans had the upper hand in the race to develop the most advanced fighter aircraft, thanks to their engine munitions industry.
