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World War II was the first war in which jet aircraft participated in combat with examples being used on both sides of the conflict during the latter stages of the war. The first successful jet aircraft, the Heinkel He 178, flew only five days before the war started on 1 September 1939. [1]
Before World War II, the Germans saw the potential for aircraft powered by the jet engine constructed by Hans von Ohain in 1936. [15] [16] After the successful test flights of the world's first jet aircraft—the Heinkel He 178—within a week of the invasion of Poland which started the conflict, they adopted the jet engine for an advanced fighter aircraft.
The list of aircraft of World War II includes all of the aircraft used by countries which were at war during World War II from the period between when the country joined the war and the time the country withdrew from it, or when the war ended.
The early marks of Spitfire and Hurricane had machine guns that were, however, of the .30 calibre (7.62mm) class, with less hitting power than heavier calibre weapons firing non-explosive bullets - the Germans' MG 131 machine gun, the Japanese Ho-103 machine gun, the Soviets' Berezin UB and particularly the "light-barrel" AN/M2 version of the ...
The Meteor was the first production jet, with the first orders for production examples being made on 8 August 1941, [11] the prototype first flying on 5 March 1943 and the first production aircraft flying on 12 January 1944, [12] while the first orders for production Me 262 aircraft were not issued until 25 May 1943, [13] and the first ...
The areas of the world covered by commercial air routes in 1925. Sometimes dubbed the Golden Age of Aviation, [1] the period in the history of aviation between the end of World War I (1918) and the beginning of World War II (1939) was characterised by a progressive change from the slow wood-and-fabric biplanes of World War I to fast, streamlined metal monoplanes, creating a revolution in both ...
The B-29 was the largest aircraft to have a significant operational role in World War II and remains the only aircraft in history to have ever used a nuclear weapon in combat. Air warfare was a major component in all theaters of World War II and, together with anti-aircraft warfare , consumed a large fraction of the industrial output of the ...
Almost as soon as they were invented, aeroplanes were used for military purposes. The first country to use them for military purposes was Italy, whose aircraft made reconnaissance, bombing and artillery correction flights in Libya during the Italian-Turkish war (September 1911 – October 1912). This war also saw Ottoman soldiers shoot down a ...