page_title: René Fonck
section_title: 1917
hierarchical_section_title: René Fonck / Military aviation career / 1917
caption_attribution_description: English: A V8 aircraft engine Hispano-Suiza 8C exhibited at the Air &amp; Space Museum at Le Bourget, France. Français&#160;: Un moteur V8 d'aviation Hispano-Suiza 8C exposé au Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace du Bourget.
context_page_description: Colonel René Paul Fonck was a French aviator who ended the First World War as the top Entente fighter ace and, when all succeeding aerial conflicts of the 20th and 21st centuries are also considered, Fonck still holds the title of "all-time Allied Ace of Aces". He received confirmation for 75 victories out of 142 claims. Taking into account his probable claims, Fonck's final tally could conceivably be nearer 100 or above. He was made an Officer of the Legion of Honor in 1918 and later a Commander of the Legion of Honor after the war, and raised again to the dignity of Grand Officer.
context_section_description: On 17 March 1917, Fonck scored a second time, downing an Albatros in conjunction with his observer, Sergeant Huffer. By this time, Fonck had amassed over 500 hours flight time, an incredible amount in those early days of aviation.
  At age of 23, on 15 April 1917 ("Bloody April"), Fonck received a coveted invitation to join the famous Escadrille les Cigognes. Group de Combat 12, with its four escadrilles (or squadrons), was the world's first fighter wing. The then leading French ace, Georges Guynemer, was serving at the time in one of its escadrilles, N3, and had just scored his 36th victory.
  Fonck was assigned to another escadrille in the group, Spa 103. Flying the SPAD VII, he quickly made a name for himself, attaining flying ace status by 13 May. He picked off another target on 12 June, then went on hiatus until 9 August. He scored twice more that month, on 21 and 22 August.
  On 14 September, he killed the pilot of a German observation plane and watched as the plane inverted and dropped the thrashing observer almost through the wing of Fonck's Spad. He even went to the extreme of tearing the barograph out of the cockpit of that day's victim, his twelfth, so its readout would confirm his combat report. On 30 September, he and Adjutant Dupre jointly shot down a German two-seater Rumpler CIV 6787/16 of FA 18. The news reported the killed pilot to be Leutnant Kurt Wissemann, who had allegedly shot down Guynemer, and that Fonck had boasted of avenging the death of his "good friend" Guynemer. This story is put into question by German records, indicating that Kurt Wissemann of Jasta 3 had been killed two days before in a different fight, in which he was flying a single-seater, probably against No. 56 Squadron.
  September and October added four victories apiece to Fonck's score. Thus, by year's end, he had raised his tally to nineteen, was commissioned an officer, and had received the Légion d'honneur.
  Fonck got only better. Known for his clinical professionalism, he applied mathematical principles to combat flying, and his engineering knowledge regarding the capabilities of the aircraft he flew was unsurpassed among his fellow pilots. Fonck took few chances, patiently stalking his intended victims from higher altitudes. He then used deflection shooting with deadly accuracy at close range, resulting in an astonishing economy of ammunition expended per kill. More often than not, a single burst of less than five rounds from his Vickers machine gun was sufficient. His preferred method of aerial combat was not to engage into dogfights, but to carry out surgically merciless executions. He was also reputed to be able to spot enemy observation aircraft from very far away, where most other pilots would have perceived nothing.
  Fonck, like France's leading ace, Captain Guynemer, flew a limited-production SPAD XII fighter, distinguished by the presence of a hand-loaded 37mm Puteaux cannon firing through the propeller boss. He is apparently credited with downing 11 German airplanes with this type of armament, called a "moteur-canon". This was made possible by the gear-reduction version of the Hispano-Suiza V8 SOHC engine first used in that model of SPAD fighter. It offset the now-hollow propeller shaft above the crankshaft axis, and the 37mm cannon was mounted in the V space between the two rows of cylinders. Fonck would later fly the highly successful SPAD XIII, the first SPAD fighter model to use twin Vickers machine guns.
caption: A geared-output shaft HS.8C engine for a SPAD S.XII, showing the elevated intake manifold to clear the 37mm cannon mounted in the "vee" between the cylinder banks.
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