When the first world war broke out, powered flight was barely a decade old. Within the first few months of the war, the first flimsy aircraft would change ground warfare forever. An Allied reconnaissance plane spotted a crucial weakness in the German lines at the Marne in August 1914. However, as the Allied massed to attack, a German aircraft saw them and the element of surprise was lost. Armies could no longer manoeuvre without being seen - and the era of trench warfare began.

At first rival pilots regarded each other as brothers. but the desperate need to knock out the enemy `eye in the sky` led to the swift development of the first fighter aircraft. World War One would be fought with equal ferocity in the air as on the ground.