typeracer

At first, military aviation was fairly placid, most reconnaissance, artillery spotting, and the occasional bombing of footsloggers; even in the opening months of World War I, this was the case. Then, a few pilots started taking shots at enemy pilots with pistols. Before anyone knew it, planes were equipped with machine guns (after Fokker solved that problem of shooting through a spinning propeller), and dogfighting began. Adventurous pilots invented maneuvers - such as the Immelmann and Low Yo-Yo - to give themselves an advantage in battle. Victory in a dogfight - unlike knightly jousts, it's more of a composite of fear and flames - quickly became a matter of technology and technique.