AEROPLANE AS WARFARE

The First World War served as a testbed for the use of the aircraft as a weapon. Initially seen by the generals as a "toy", aircraft demonstrated their potential as mobile observation platforms, then proved themselves to be machines of war capable of causing casualties to the enemy. The earliest known aerial victory with a synchronised machine gun-armed fighter aircraft occurred on 1 July 1915, by German Luftstreitkräfte Leutnant Kurt Wintgens. "Fighter aces" appeared, described as "knights of the air"; the greatest (by number of air victories) was the German Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron. On the side of the allies, the ace with the highest number of downed aircraft was René Fonck, of France. All-metal-structure aircraft took their first steps into reality during the World War I era, through the work of Hugo Junkers in the creation of the Junkers J 1 in 1915.
Following the war, aircraft technology continued to develop. Alcock and Brown crossed the Atlantic non-stop for the first time in 1919, a feat first performed solo by Charles Lindbergh in 1927. The first commercial flights took place between the United States and Canada in 1919. The turbine or the jet engine was in development in the 1930s; military jet aircraft began operating in the 1940s.
Aircraft played a primary role in the Second World War, having a presence in all the major battles of the war: Pearl Harbor, the battles of the Pacific, the Battle of Britain. They were an essential component of the military strategies of the period, such as the German Blitzkrieg or the American and Japanese aircraft carrier campaigns of the Pacific.
In October 1947, Chuck Yeager was the first person to exceed the speed of sound, flying the Bell X-1.
Aircraft in a civil military role continued to feed and supply Berlin in 1948, when access to rail roads and roads to the city, completely surrounded by Eastern Germany, were blocked, by order of the Soviet Union.
The Cold War played a large role in the production of new aircraft, such as the B-52.
The first commercial jet, the de Havilland Comet, was introduced in 1952. The Boeing 707, the first widely successful commercial jet, was in commercial service for more than 50 years, from 26 October 1958 to 22 June 2010. The Boeing 727 was another widely used passenger aircraft, and the Boeing 747 was the world's biggest passenger aircraft between 1970 and 2005, when it was surpassed by the Airbus A380.