Popular Science Monthly 



79 



machine-gun implied the building of an 

 airplane able to mount and fire it. Now 

 it was soon found that the pusher type of 

 airplane, which carries its propeller in the 

 rear, is not so fast as the tractor, which 

 carries its propeller in the front. It was 

 also found that for fighting, at least, 

 quick-maneuvering ability is highly essen- 

 tial, which implies a small, high-powered 

 machine carrying only one man. Here 

 was a very difficult technical problem to 

 be solved: The fighting machine had to 

 be a tractor for speed; the propeller in 

 front necessarily interfered with the proper 

 manipulation of the machine-gun; the 

 officer in the pilot's seat had not only to 

 keep his machine on an even keel but 

 also to fight his gun. Had the military 

 strategists of Europe been told before the 

 war that these were the conditions that 

 would have to be fulfilled, they would have 

 dismissed them as absurdities at once. 

 But by the middle of 1916, the requisites 

 were so clearly recognized that they were 

 met, and that with astonishing ingenuity. 



The Fast Fighting Machine Appears 



By the end 

 of I9i5ithad 

 been discov- 

 ered that of. 

 all the flying 

 m ac h i n e s 

 used by the 

 Allies, the. 

 fast racing 

 monoplane 

 of Morane- 

 Saulnier in 

 France and 

 the speedy 

 biplane 

 racers made 

 by the two 

 firms of Sop- 

 with and Bristol 

 in England were 

 best adapted for 

 air fighting, sim- 

 ply because they 

 had speed and 

 dragon-fly ma- 

 neuvering abil- 

 ity. They were 

 given more 

 speed by equip- 

 ping them with 

 engines of one 

 hundred and 



Photo Service See key diagram below 



Fast fighting machines have engines of 150 horsepower and 

 more, and are strengthened to withstand enormous stresses 



fifty horsepower and even more, and they 

 were strengthened so that they might 

 withstand the enormous stresses set up in 

 flight by engines so powerful. 



Curiously enough, the problem of firing 

 through the propeller had been solved 

 before the war by some imaginative in- 

 ventor with more vision than is given to 

 academically trained generals, and curi- 

 ously enough it was solved in both France 

 and Germany simultaneously. The solution 

 was this: The gun was rigidly mounted in 

 front of the pilot, and it was mechanically 

 connected with the engine. A propeller 

 revolves at about 1,200 revolutions a 

 minute; a machine-gun fires at the rate of 

 600 shots a minute. Let the engine fire the 

 gun at just that fraction of a second when 

 no propeller blade intervenes — that is the 

 solution. 



Because the gun is rigidly mounted, the 

 air fighter must turn the entire machine 

 toward his German enemy to fire it. The 

 enemy does the same; for the German 

 Fokker, an adaptation of the French 

 Morane-Saulnier, is similarly designed and 

 equipped with a fixed machine-gun. 



When 

 these fighters 

 first ap- 

 peared on the 

 side of the 

 Allies they 

 drove every- 

 thing before 

 them. It was 

 impossible 

 for the slower 

 Germans to 

 cope with 

 them. Then 

 the Fokker 

 appeared . 

 The m a- 

 chines of the 

 Allies were 

 made still faster; 

 the fighters be- 

 came more skil- 

 ful, moredaring; 

 fighting tactics 

 were evolved. 

 As a result, the 

 Allies have not 

 only caught up 

 with each Ger- 

 man improve- 

 ment but have 

 surpassed it. 



'^?wmsm 



