page_title: History of the Armée de l'Air (1909–1942)
section_title: First World War
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Armée de l'Air (1909–1942) / First World War
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Vue d'ensemble d'un avion biplan Bréguet à Champien (Somme). 8 mars 1918. Guerre 1914-1918.
context_page_description: The Armée de l'Air is the name used for the French Air Force in its native language since it was made independent of the Army in 1933. French naval aviation, the Aéronautique Navale is covered elsewhere.
context_section_description: At the start of the First World War ("La Première Guerre mondiale"), France led the world in an aircraft design and by mid-1912 the Aéronautique Militaire had five squadrons ("escadrilles"). This had grown to 132 machines and 21 escadrilles by 1914, the same year when, on 21 February, it formally received a budget under the Ministry of War ("Ministère de la Guerre"). 
  On 3 August, Germany declared war against France.
  At the beginning of what eventually became known as First World War, the Aéronautique Militaire concentrated on reconnaissance with aircraft like the Blériot XI. On 8 October, though, the commander-in-chief, General Barès, proposed a massive expansion to 65 escadrilles. Furthermore, he proposed that four types of aircraft could be used for four different tasks: Morane-Saulnier Ls would be used as scouts, Voisin IIIs as bombers, Farman MF.11s as reconnaissance aircraft, and Caudron G.IIIs as artillery spotters.
  On October 5, 1914, Sergent Joseph Franz and his mechanic Caporal Louis Quénault became the first to shoot down another aircraft when they downed a German Aviatik. However, air fighting was revolutionized when a reconnaissance pilot, Roland Garros, mounted a Hotchkiss machine gun on the cowling of his Morane-Saulnier L with a mechanical interrupter mechanism. The inconsistent firing rate of the Hotchkiss prevented the mechanism from working properly and he added deflector wedges to the rear of the propeller blades, so that the wooden propeller would not be shot to pieces whenever he opened fire on German aircraft. With this setup, Garros became the world's first fighter pilot, but he was captured shortly afterwards when his engine failed.
  Independently, Anthony Fokker succeeded when he fitted a Fokker M.5K Eindecker (monoplane)  with a Parabellum MG14 machine gun equipped with a gun synchronizer by the start of July 1915, thus changing the way in which the air war was fought, as German and Allied fighter aircraft fought each other in the air, producing "ace" pilots. Three prominent French aces were René Fonck, who became the top-scoring Allied pilot of World War I with 75 enemy aircraft shot down, Georges Guynemer who was killed after 54 victories, and Charles Nungesser, who achieved 43 victories and survived the war, and Georges Madon who had 41 victories.
  Prior to 1916, escadrilles operated a variety of different types of aircraft together to accomplish specific assigned tasks with the first fighters being distributed piecemeal to each escadrille. This type of organization was common at the time. In 1916, as a result of their failure to achieve aerial supremacy over the Battle of Verdun and the inability of the reconnaissance aircraft to track German movements, Charles de Tricornot de Rose grouped the new Nieuport 11 fighters into dedicated fighter units, so that so could operate together more effectively. This so revolutionized air combat that the Germans were forced to follow suit shortly thereafter.
  During this period the Lafayette Escadrille (designated N.124) was formed around a group of mainly American volunteers while their parent country remained neutral. Initially operating a mixture of Nieuport 11s, 16s and 17s, when the SPAD S.XIII entered service, they would be redesignated S.124. The entry of the United States into the war resulted in most of their surviving personnel would be transferred to the U.S. Army Air Service (USAAS) in February 1918. The unit's leading ace was French-born American Raoul Lufbery, who shot down 16 enemy aircraft (all but one with the Escadrille) prior to his death in action on 19 May 1918. Other American volunteer pilots, including the first black fighter pilot, Eugene Bullard, flew with regular French Aéronautique Militaire escadrilles.
  By April 1917, the Aéronautique Militaire had 2,870 aircraft with 60 fighter and 20 bomber squadrons and 400 observation aircraft, yet, by October, an even more radical expansion to over 300 squadrons was proposed. By May 1918, over 600 fighters and bombers came under the command of the Division Aérienne. Two months later, long-ra
caption: 1918 Breguet 14 reconnaissance bomber
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