Eugène Adrien Roland Georges Garros was a French pioneering aviator and fighter pilot during World War I and early days of aviation. In 1928, the Roland Garros tennis stadium was named in his memory; the French Open tennis tournament takes the name of Roland Garros from the stadium in which it is held.
A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single main wing plane, in contrast to a biplane or other multiplane, which have multiple planes.
The Fokker Scourge occurred during the First World War from July 1915 to early 1916. Imperial German Flying Corps units, equipped with Fokker Eindecker fighters, gained an advantage over the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the French Aéronautique Militaire.
A synchronization gear was a device enabling a single-engine tractor configuration aircraft to fire its forward-firing armament through the arc of its spinning propeller without bullets striking the blades. This allowed the aircraft, rather than the gun, to be aimed at the target.
World War I was the first major conflict involving the large-scale use of aircraft. Tethered observation balloons had already been employed in several wars, and would be used extensively for artillery spotting. Germany employed Zeppelins for reconnaissance over the North Sea and Baltic and also for strategic bombing raids over Britain and the Eastern Front.
A triplane is a fixed-wing aircraft equipped with three vertically stacked wing planes. Tailplanes and canard foreplanes are not normally included in this count, although they occasionally are.
In an aircraft with a pusher configuration, the propeller(s) are mounted behind their respective engine(s). According to British aviation author Bill Gunston, a "pusher propeller" is one mounted behind the engine, so that the drive shaft is in compression in normal operation.
The Morane-Saulnier N, also known as the Morane-Saulnier Type N, was a French monoplane fighter aircraft of the First World War. Designed and manufactured by Morane-Saulnier, the Type N entered service in April 1915 with the Aéronautique Militaire designated as the MoS-5 C1. It also equipped four squadrons of the Royal Flying Corps, in which it was nicknamed the Bullet, and was operated in limited numbers by the 19th Squadron of the Imperial Russian Air Force.
The Fokker Eindecker fighters were a series of German World War I monoplane single-seat fighter aircraft designed by Dutch engineer Anthony Fokker. Developed in April 1915, the first Eindecker ("Monoplane") was the first purpose-built German fighter aircraft and the first aircraft to be fitted with a synchronization gear, enabling the pilot to fire a machine gun through the arc of the propeller without striking the blades. The Eindecker gave the German Army's Air Service (then the Fliegertruppen des deutschen Kaiserreiches) a degree of air superiority from July 1915 until early 1916. This period, during which Allied aviators regarded their poorly armed aircraft as "Fokker Fodder", became known as the "Fokker Scourge".
The Fokker E.I was the first fighter aircraft to enter service with the Fliegertruppe of the Deutsches Heer in World War I. Its arrival at the front in mid-1915 marked the start of a period known as the "Fokker Scourge" during which the E.I and its successors achieved a measure of air superiority over the Western Front.
The Fokker M.5 was an unarmed single-seat monoplane aircraft designed and built by Anthony Fokker in 1913. It served as a light reconnaissance aircraft with the German army at the outbreak of World War I and was the basis for the first successful fighter aircraft in German service, the Fokker E.I.
The Morane-Saulnier L, or Morane-Saulnier Type L, or officially MoS-3, was a French parasol wing one or two-seat scout aeroplane of the First World War. The Type L became one of the first successful fighter aircraft when it was fitted with a single machine gun that fired through the arc of the propeller, which was protected by armoured deflector wedges. Its immediate effectiveness in this role launched an arms race in fighter development, and the Type L was swiftly rendered obsolete. The original Type L used wing warping for lateral control, but a later version designated Type LA was fitted with ailerons.
The Talleres Nacionales de Construcciones Aeronáuticas (TNCA) was an aircraft manufacturer established outside Mexico City in 1915. TNCA closed in 1930, was briefly revived in 1941 under the name Talleres Generales de Aeronáutica (TGA) and again in 1947.
The Goupy No.2 was an experimental aircraft designed by Ambroise Goupy and Mario Calderara and built in France in 1909 at the Blériot factory at Buc. The Goupy No.2 is significant for two major and influential innovations in aircraft design: it was the first tractor configuration biplane to fly and the first biplane to feature staggered wings, built with a landing gear configuration nearly identical in appearance to the Blériot XI monoplane, flown earlier that year. While both these features would very soon become the norm in aircraft design, the No.2 was described in the aviation press at the time as having a "somewhat unusual design". The only features that would not be typical of aircraft in the years to come would be its biplane tail unit, and the whole-chord wingtip ailerons fitted to both upper and lower wings. The uncovered wood box-girder fuselage, typical of early aircraft, was later covered.
LeutnantKurt Wintgens was a German World War I fighter ace. He was the first military fighter pilot to score a victory over an opposing aircraft, while piloting an aircraft armed with a synchronized machine gun. Wintgens was the recipient of the Iron Cross and the Pour le Mérite.
The Fokker D.XXIII was a Dutch single-seat fighter designed and built by Fokker. Only one aircraft was flown before the country was invaded by the Germans in May 1940.
A spinner is an aircraft component, a streamlined fairing fitted over a propeller hub or at the centre of a turbofan engine. Spinners both make the aircraft overall more streamlined, thereby reducing aerodynamic drag, and also smooth the airflow so that it enters the air intakes more efficiently. Spinners also fulfill an aesthetic role on some aircraft designs.
Raymond Victor Gabriel Jules Saulnier was a French aeronautical engineer. He was a graduate of the École Centrale Paris, and first collaborated with Louis Blériot on the Blériot XI used for the Channel crossing. In 1911, he founded the Morane-Saulnier company with the Morane brothers, where he designed many aircraft and for which he filed numerous patents. He also designed the aircraft in which Roland Garros made the first crossing of the Mediterranean on 23 September 1913.
