Isr Audio Tour Part 1

The stationary observation balloon, or aerostat, had an advantage over aircraft in that it had a direct telephone line to the artillery battery, giving near real-time reconnaissance feedback during an attack. The armies deployed them no closer than three miles from the front, and two observers normally ascended to 3,600 feet. While fixed-wing aircraft used square maps, the balloon used fan-shaped maps due to their specific field of view. Armies did not begin an offensive without their balloon intelligence sensors on station. The old term “when the balloon goes up” meant an engagement was about to begin. Because it was a very important static reconnaissance platform with a telephone directly to the artillery batteries, they became important targets for fighters.

Although the museum’s German Halberstadt CL IV is technically an attack aircraft, it looks like the standard observation aircraft of the First World War, with pilot in front and armed observer in back. Early in the war, it became obvious that the aircraft and the artillery battery required the same map to be successful. The British developed a pair of maps with numbered and lettered 400-yard squares known as a “squared map.” The observation aircraft could drop instructions on the battery. Later, the use of the wireless telegraph enabled the air crews to exactly target enemy positions. A 120-foot long wire antenna that extended out the back of the aircraft increased the range of the early radio sets. The Germans believed the observer, not the pilot was really the guy in charge. He ran the collection mission, took the photos, handled the wireless and shot the rear guns.

One Foreign Materiel Exploitation (FME) story during the war involved the synchronized machine gun. French pilot Roland Garros and his mechanic armored his prop with steel plates to enable a machine gun fire through it. He said about one in 10 bullets would ricochet. Garros downed several German aircraft with it before going down behind enemy lines. The Germans tried to copy his design with disastrous results because the French used copper-jacketed bullets and the Germans used steel-jacketed ones that shattered the wedges and the props. Anthony Fokker’s engineers fully realized the idea of the mechanically synchronized machine gun to fire through the prop. They made it work thanks to basic engineering and more dependable German ammunition. The Fokker Scourge ensued, where the Fokker Eindecker fighter wreaked havoc on Allied aircraft for a number of months. The British also developed mechanically synchronized gear, but took a different approach as well. Using the Theory of Sonics developed by Romanian physicis

The Germans used basically the same rotary aircraft engine as the French and the British, because they licensed it before the war. As the Fokker Triplane’s Oberursel engine became harder to replace later in the conflict, the German ace Josef Jacobs used Foreign Materiel Acquisition (FMA) to solve the problem. He offered a case of champagne to any soldiers that brought him an allied rotary engine from downed enemy aircraft in good condition. The ace not only had a good stock of engines, but the Sopwith Camel’s 130-horsepower Clerget rotary and propeller combination gave the Dr. I 20 additional horsepower, resulting in increased speed and performance. Even one of Jacobs’ American victims expressed astonishment at the speed of his Fokker.

The Fokker D.VII was arguably the best fighter aircraft of World War I. As a part of the Armistice Agreement, the U.S. received 142 Fokker D.VII aircraft as war reparation payment. Eleven of them came here to Dayton, Ohio, to the Engineering Division at McCook Field. There, engineers made extensive modifications to their powerplants by installing Liberty and Packard engines. They also gave them “P” designators, such as P-108 and P-127. The Army Air Service pilots all agreed that none of the U.S. modifications made the aircraft fly as well as the unmodified German version. None of the original McCook Field aircraft exist today, and only three of the original 142 brought to the U.S. remain. The museum’s example is a reproduction.

When World War I started, all the warring powers had airplanes, but lacked in a complete understanding of their potential. British and French aviators made critical reconnaissance observations that helped save 100,000 British troops from capture at Mons and win the First Battle of the Marne. One of the most difficult tasks was getting ground commanders to believe them. The French aviators took up artillery officers to view German gun positions. They asked to bring their personal cameras and it became standard to use cameras. The military proved reluctant to invest however. After being asked for money to buy cameras, a French officer stated, “use a Kodak that you can purchase from a local shop…don’t ask the government to pay for this.” A French general stated, “I already have a map, I don’t care about your pictures.” Troops on the ground understood that an airplane overhead meant accurate, correctable artillery fire and they learned to hate early reconnaissance aircraft. The first fixed-wing aircraft ever shot

Wilbur Wright enabled the first use of airplanes in combat by teaching two Italian officers to fly in 1909. The Italians used airplanes in Libya during the Italo-Turkish War of 1911. That conflict marked the first use of reconnaissance aircraft (a Bleriot XI on Oct. 23, 1911) and the first bombing attack (a German Etrich Taube on Nov. 1, 1911). The Italians even took photographs from their newly discovered intelligence platform. However, many nations, including the U.S., lacked vision as to the airplane’s potential. Although U.S. Army aviators fired the first machine gun off an airplane in 1912, the Army general staff commented that “thoughts of air battles were purely the product of the young fliers’ fertile imaginations.” As the world entered a major conflict in 1914, the airplane and the art of air intelligence took on an entirely new significance.

Air intelligence did not begin with the Wright Brothers. It initially became possible because of the Montgolfier brothers’ first manned balloon flight on 21 November 1783. Count Pilatre de Rozier and Marquis d’Arlandes ascended up to 3,000 feet in a hot air balloon and traveled for five miles (see model above you). Eleven years later, the French first used the balloon in combat. The Battle of Fleurus took place in June 1794, during the French Revolutionary Wars. The French defeated the Austrian Army, in part, because they could see the enemy’s troop movements from above. The gas-filled balloon L’Entreprenant stayed at 1,700 feet for over eight hours, delivering messages in bags with ballast on rings down the tether lines and via semaphore. During the American Civil War, men like Thaddeus Lowe also used the balloon to collection intelligence. Like today’s satellites and remotely piloted aircraft (RPA), the intelligence sensor collected what the warfighter needed and delivered it down the line, enabling the lea

The National Museum of the United States Air Force began in 1923, not as a tourist attraction, but as an educational tool for Army engineers to study aeronautical engineering techniques from around the world. In the ensuing years, the museum also served as a place to study the application of air power, ballistic missiles and the contributions the Air Force made to the space race. Since 1996, the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC) has used the museum as a place to educate analysts and visitors on the evolution of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR). Anyone from Air Force intelligence organizations or from the Intelligence Community will find the museum an excellent place to study the role of intelligence in modern military history. The NASIC History Office created a tour of the museum that focused on the intelligence lessons the collection taught. The lessons learned in the study of intelligence history applied better to the complicated ISR mission of the 21st century when taugh