Reaching for the Skies

Episode 3: The Aeroplane Goes To War

September 26, 1988 • 60 min

Over France in World War I, where man and flying machines were first forged into a formidable fighting unit. At the start of the war, the adversaries could muster only a few hundred frail aircraft between them. Yet, in less than 4 years, Britain had commissioned an independent Air Force, had built over 50,000 aircraft and trained 26,000 pilots for observation, strafing, bombing and whatever was necessary to protect its air space. Then, when Anthony Fokker mounted a machine gun on an aeroplane, he changed the face of war forever.