Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The "first French ace", Frenchman Adolphe Pégoud being awarded the Croix de guerre. A flying ace, fighter ace or air ace is a military aviator credited with shooting down five or more enemy aircraft during aerial combat. The exact number of aerial victories required to officially qualify as an ace is varied but is usually considered to be five ...
Stephen W. Thompson (March 20, 1894 – October 9, 1977) was an American aviator of World War I. Flying as a gunner on a French aircraft in February 1918, he became the first member of the United States military to shoot down an enemy aircraft. Kiffin Rockwell achieved an earlier aerial victory as an American volunteer member of the French ...
Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator and military officer. On May 20–21, 1927, he made the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris, a distance of 5,800 kilometres (3,600 mi), flying alone for 33.5 hours. His aircraft, the Spirit of St. Louis, was designed and built to compete for ...
Iron Cross, both second and first class. Oberleutnant Kurt Robert Wilhelm Wolff PlM (6 February 1895 – 15 September 1917) was one of Imperial Germany 's highest-scoring fighter aces during World War I. The frail youthful orphan originally piloted bombers before being picked by Manfred von Richthofen to join Jagdstaffel 11 (Fighter Squadron 11 ...
Air warfare of World War II. Boeing B-29 Superfortress long-range strategic bombers releasing their payloads during the Burma campaign in 1945. 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.
In the morning of April 14, 1561, at daybreak, between 4 and 5 a.m., a dreadful apparition occurred on the sun, and then this was seen in Nuremberg in the city, before the gates and in the country – by many men and women. At first there appeared in the middle of the sun two blood-red semi-circular arcs, just like the moon in its last quarter.
Credited with 72 victories, making him the top Canadian and British Empire ace of the war. [ 11] In 1917 he became the highest scoring ace in the RFC and the third top ace of the war, behind only the Red Baron and René Fonck. [ 12] Raoul Lufbery. United States. ( Armée de l'air ) 2 December 1917 – 15 May 1918.
Fighter aces in World War II had tremendously varying kill scores, affected as they were by many factors: the pilot's skill level, the performance of the airplane the pilot flew and the planes they flew against, how long they served, their opportunity to meet the enemy in the air (Allied to Axis disproportion), whether they were the formation's leader or a wingman, the standards their air ...