In its broadest sense aviation has been used for military purposes even before the Wright brothers’ first airplane flight of 1903. Before the Wright Brothers, balloons where used as observation platforms. With the event of controlled flight the Army was quick in using it as a reconnaissance device. But it was not long before they started to investigating airplanes for gun and bomb carriage. The biggest obstacle was making the plane a steady platform and sturdy enough to carry the loads. Thus at the outbreak of World War One the airplanes where still a reconnaissance device, few were even capable of carrying any form of bomb, and none were intended to carry a gun. This did not stop pilots from carrying armament in their aircraft. This was limited to a service rifle or even a pistol. As the war progressed, the French pilot Roland Garros created a crude gun for air combat for his Morane-Saillnier Type L monoplane. Armed with this gun he went on patrol and shot down a German Albatross observation two-seater. By the end of that night patrol he had engaged and shot down two more German planes. In the end however, he was forced to land behind German lines after anti-aircraft fire had damaged his Morane. His gun device was salvaged, and immediate the German high command ordered copy’s to be made. But rather then copying the device, the three men from the Fokker aircraft company improve the arrangement. The new invention was the mechanic interrupter of the propeller. This allowed weapons to be fired with out the worrying about the gun fire hitting the propeller. The Gear was soon fitted to a Fooker M.5 k monoplane scout. On the first of July 1915 Lieutenant Kurt Wintgens used the new gun device to destroy a French Morane. Lieutenant Kurt was soon followed by other Fokker pilots, starting what was called the “Fokker Scourge”. The British and French suffered tremendous losses. The allied designers to counter this threat started producing aircraft with machine guns mounted to fire outside the propeller arc. By the Autumn of 1915 to early 1916, the Fokker Scourge had spread across the fighting area above the Western Front. In the end the almost defenseless Allied reconnaissance machines were little to no match to the Fokker Scout. Finally in the summer of 1916 the allies started to produce more stable planes which competed well against the Germans and they again gained air supremacy. As the war continued both sides of the war continued to make improvements to their planes. The trends continue to today, as the world powers continue to improve their planes.

The first idea of air bombing happened in 1670 that is when Father Francesco de Lana-Terzi wrote a treatise on the feasibility of building an “aerial ship”. The cleric also clearly foresaw a military application for a vehicle as a weapon of bombardment. It was two and a half Centuries before his dire prophecy became reality. The first know occasion of bombs being dropped from Airplanes in war took place in November 1911, during the Italy-Turkish confect in Libya. During that conflict Second Lieutenant Gurlio Gavotti of the Italian Air Flotilla dropped four 4.4-1b (2-kg) “Cipellie” grenades from his aircraft on to enemy troops. But, it wasn’t until early January 1910 when the USA started trials on the releasing of a “warlord”. Though the lethal load on the first occasion was merely three 2-1b (0.9 kg) bombs. One year later the first real test involving a live explosive bomb where completed.