| During World War I, both airplanes and lighter-than-air craft were used to fight the war. The necessities of war encouraged the designers to construct planes for reconnaissance, attack, bombing, and other highly specialized military purposes. Because of the war, more pilots were trained and more planes were built during the four years of conflict, than in the 13 years since the first flight.
During World War I, the Germans were the first to win command of the air with the E-I monoplane designed by Anthony Fokker. This plane was the first widely used fighter. The E-I had a fixed forward-firing machine gun fitted with an interrupter gear to enable it to fire between the blades of the aircraft's propeller without hitting it. The E-I achieved important victories in 1915-1916 until the Allies produced fighter aircraft of their own that were able to challenge it in combat. The first effective Allied tractor fighters included the Nieuport 17, the Spad 7, and the Sopwith Pup. The Germans replied with the Albatros D-III, the Pfalz D-III, and the Fokker DR-I. The Allies then designed and manufactured the Sopwith Camel, the Bristol Fighter, the SE-5, the Spad 13, and the Nieuport 28.
During the war, the Allies seemed to have maintained command of the Air over their own territory to a greater extent than the Germans. The aircraft combat techniques went through a progressive improvement throughout the war. Both sides made progress in developing technologies in aerial photography, gun-spotting,bombing and other more direct methods of helping in the land battle.
There was also a lot of development in aircraft design during the war. When the war started, the majority of the planes were two-seat biplanes. Their liquid-cooled engines, ranging from 80 to 150 horsepower usually gave them maximum speeds of under 100 m.p.h. By the end of the war, specialized single seat fighters were in use. These had speeds up to 140 m.p.h., and were powered by engines of up to 300 horsepower. There were also types of two-seater fighters, as wall as single-engine bombers. There were some four-engine bombers including the Russian Sacristy bombers and the Handley Page V/1500. These planes had speeds of 75-80 m.p.h.
The majority of the aircraft used during World War I were made of wire-braced frame construction, covered with fabric. The Germans employed plywood covering and wooden fuselages in some designs. There were two design developments that took place in Germany. The first was the all metal design. Both biplanes and monoplanes of this type went into service. The second development was due to Anthony Fokker, who produced a series of designs with thick wings, but with a structure featuring a torsion box built up from two wooden box spars and a plywood skin. The fuselages for these designs were steel-tube frameworks covered with fabric. The very successful Fokker D-VII fighter was of this type.
Fokker escaped to Holland after the war and had worldwide success with transports and military aircraft. The Fokker monoplanes played a major part in the early development of commercial air transport. Apart from the Fokker monoplanes, in most countries, the aircraft of this period were still biplanes built to the "stick-and-string" formula of the pioneer period.
An important development in World War I, was the development of strategic air bombing. The formation of the British 41st Wing, Royal Air Flying Corps, contributed greatly to the development of the strategic bombing. This formation later became the Independent Air Force. They dropped 550 tons of bombs in Germany. The thinking behind the Independant Air Force led to the development of the Royal Air Force, which was a combination of all British military and naval air formations. The RAF became the worlds first fully independent military air force.
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