French Aviation during the First World War

During the cradle of aviation, at the beginning of the Great War, France had access to only a few dozen military aircraft, with a staff who didn’t quite know what to do with them. However, during the course of the conflict, the embryonic Air Force, dedicated to the creation of reconnaissance and bombing missions, evolved like wildfire to the point that by the Armistice of 11 November 1918, French military aviation had become one of the world's most powerful as a result of the construction of 10,000 aircraft spread throughout nearly 300 squadrons. Having became the first nation equipped with an air force, the French aviation industry in its infancy before the war, had been able to produce in four years 50,000 aircraft, may of which would go on to support a number of her allies, including Britain, Russia and especially the United States. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the evolution of the French Air Force from 1914 to 1918 through a historical narrative peppered with anecdotes and illustrated with many unpublished pictures from the period and profiles of the most iconic devices. The work is complete with full specifications of aircraft built and used by France during the four years of the Great War.

• The Kings of the Air: French Aces and Airmen of the Great War
• Eyes All Over the Sky: Aerial Reconnaissance in the First World War
• Junkers Aircraft of WWI: Volume 2 Junkers J.5–J.11 (A Centennial Perspective on Great War Airplanes) (Volume 31)
• Junkers Airplanes of WWI: Volume 1: J.1–J.4 (A Centennial Perspective on Great War Airplanes) (Volume 30)
• British Aircraft of WWI Volume 1: Experimental Fighters Part 1 (Great War Aviation Centennial) (Volume 28)
• Above Ypres: The German Air Force in Flanders 1914-1918
• The French Air Force in the First World War: Rare Photographs from Wartime Archives (Images of War)
• DFW Aircraft of WWI: A Centennial Perspective on Great War Airplanes (Great War Aviation Centennial Series) (Volume 29)
• Great War Fighter Aces 1916 - 1918 (Images of War)
• Zeppelin vs British Home Defence 1915-18 (Duel)