Years of Combat

[mike_elliott]

Reading a book review of "Years of Combat", it occurred to me this perhaps was the motivation for the Cirrus 'chute, formation of the barf bag industry, and a reason why front seats are so desirable. Here is an excerpt

Sholto Douglas recalls his encounters with Immelman, Boelcke, von Richthofen and Goering. Indeed, much later he read Boelcke’s account of an encounter that Sholto Douglas had with him and Immelmann in December 1915. Boelcke believed that they had killed Sholto Douglas’ observer, Child, but in fact he had been thrown about so much in the encounter that he was thrown over in the aircraft and was violently sick, vomiting over Sholto Douglas in the rear seat! The RFC aircraft did not have any forward firing guns until 1916, apart from inefficient “pusher” configuration planes. With Douglas’ planes of this era, the observer sat in the front seat and the pilot in the rear. The observer had to fire his Lewis gun backwards, over the pilot’s head, which was useful if they were being pursued but not otherwise. There were also no parachutes, as supposedly a reliable parachute had not yet been invented. This was a lie from the high command, as Sholto Douglas recalls with righteous indignation, as parachutes were available well before WWI.   The “idea” was to stop crews recklessly abandoning their aircraft.

here is the full review

You cant make this stuff up..

[FloridaMan]

Read the article by Geoff Lee on Page 20 here. I did my transition training in my rocket with him. 

[N9201A]

Parachutes were absolutely used by aviators in WWI, but mostly by balloon observers, not pilots. Balloon-hunting was extremely dangerous for fighter pilots. Besides dodging cables and other low-flying hazards, attacking pilots also had to cope with anti-aircraft guns zeroed in on the balloon’s altitude.

 

Besides enemy AA and fighters, inflight breakups weren’t uncommon (Nieuports were notorious for this, as were early Fokker triplanes). The worst was probably being trapped in a burning aircraft as it plummeted to earth. American ace Raoul Lufbery was only one of many who chose to jump - sans any chute - as an alternative.

 

One wonders whether, as he watched the balloon observer dive out and pop his chute, the attacking pilot thought “man, I’ve gotta get me one of THOSE!”

 

German pilots at the end of the war started using them, but the Allies didn’t through the Armistice.

[FloridaMan]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Alkemade

[MooneyMitch]

Speaking of balloon hunting..... one would think a balloon is an easy target and a piece of cake to shoot/ deflate.  

Not so...... the WWI balloons were deflated enough that they would mostly absorb the force of the bullets . 

[thinwing]

I’m here to tell you no balloon is easy to inflate...it’s a lot of work