Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 18, 2025
Here again, copying the French services, Germany strengthened her chasing escadrilles during the whole winter of 1916-1917, and by the following spring she possessed no less than forty. Before the war she had given her attention almost exclusively to heavy airplanes. French types were plagiarized: as the Morane had been altered into the Fokker, the Nieuport became an Albatros.
The machine was entirely automatic, requiring no attention on the part of the operator after the gun was once started on its discharge. This device was originally used by the Germans who applied it to their Fokker machines.
When the aviator enters one of these schools he is a breveted pilot, and he is allowed a little more freedom than he enjoyed during the time he was learning to fly. He now takes up the Morane monoplane. It is interesting to note that the German Fokker is practically a copy of this machine.
After the French model, an Executive Council was nominated, consisting of five members, Vreede, Fijnje, Fokker, Wildrik and Van Langen, and a new Commission of Seven to frame a Constitution. The "Regulation" was rejected; and the Assembly solemnly proclaimed its "unalterable aversion" to the stadholderate, federalism, aristocracy and governmental decentralisation.
Design became standardised, though not perfected. The domination of the machine may best be expressed by contrasting the way in which machines came to be regarded as compared with the men who flew them: up to 1909, flying enthusiasts talked of Farman, of Bleriot, of Paulhan, Curtiss, and of other men; later, they began to talk of the Voisin, the Deperdussin, and even to the Fokker, the Avro, and the Bristol type.
He was awarded the French Croix de Guerre and the American Distinguished Service Medal for extraordinary heroism on August 9, 1918, when he went to the assistance of a French aviator who was fighting four Fokker planes. In the combat the four German machines were downed and their pilots killed. The Frenchman was badly hurt but eventually recovered.
I turned to my friend Hart O. Berg, the European aeroplane expert, and remarked that we seemed to be winning, but he said little, simply frowned through his binoculars. "Don't you think so?" I persisted. "Wait!" he answered. "There's something queer about this. Why should the Germans have such an inferior aircraft force? Where are all their wonderful Fokker machines?" "You mean "
Some rather exciting reconnaissances with Captain Siméon one day over Saint-Quentin they were attacked by a Fokker and, their machine-gun refusing to work, they were subjected to two hundred shots from the enemy at 100 meters, then at 50 meters, so that they were obliged to dive into a cloud, with one tire gone and a few bombardments of railway stations and goods depots did not assuage his fever for the chase.
The machine was riddled even worse than Stanley's Fokker, but fortunately not in any vital parts, nor had the planes, though perforated like a sieve in many spots, been injured in any way to impair their vitality for the frames and joints were all right. "Take him up to the Casual Dormitory boys," ordered Byers. "Careful! We don't know how badly he is hurt."
They saw from the shelter both their own machines shattered too badly for further immediate use, though the Fokker remained untouched, it being some distance off and partially under the protecting shadow of a half ruined arch of the chateau that overhung the main approach. Also they heard the whirring swish of the passing squadron as it circled over the buildings.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking