The Allies were just barely able to recoup and, this time believing aerial reports, halted the German advance at the Maine River, along which both sides dug in for a long standoff. At first, spotters who rode as passengers waved to enemy aircraft; soon they used pistols and rifles to try and shoot down their adversaries. This was totally ineffective given all the buffeting and vibrations the spotter would experience even in a smooth flight. (The rotary Gnome engines were highly efficient and reliable, but the fact that the entire engine rotated with the propeller meant the aircraft experienced a great deal of vibration.)

The solution was thought to be machine guns. The French Hotchkiss, the Belgian Lewis, the British Vickers, and the German Spandau and Parabellum were all well-crafted weapons that allowed gunners to spray the enemy with a barrage of fire, increasing the chance of a hit. But this was a very limited solution, first, because the gunner was at the mercy of the pilot’s sudden manoeuvring, and second, because a very important target area right in front of the plane was eliminated from the gunner’s field of fire.

Some work had been done before the war in developing a mechanism that would allow the pilot to aim a machine gun through the whirling blade of a propeller without destroying it, but it had proven unreliable. The solution to the problem came about as a result of a collaboration between the French aircraft designer-builder Raymond Saulnier of the Morane-Saulnier firm and the world-famous aviator Roland Garros, who had been the first to fly solo across the Mediterranean in 1913, using a Morane-Saulnier Parasol.

The only British aviator to emerge at this stage was Lanoe Hawker, winner of the Victoria Cross for defeating three German aircraft from his Bristol Scout. Hawker was to become an important architect of Allied air power, but at this stage there was little a plane could do other than bombing and bringing down the air-ships (“sausages”) the Germans used to guide artillery fire, and a plane could do this only while heavily protected by ground-based anti-aircraft fire (“Archie”) and by fiery artillery shells (“flaming onions”).

The aces rapidly assumed important roles in strengthening public morale and bolstering support for the war effort. Their images sold war bonds, and they visited factories and schools. They were the subject of newspaper and magazine articles. Some published best-selling autobiographies, such as Baron Manfred von Richthofen’s The Red Battle Flier in 1917 and Oswald Boelke’s Hautpmann Boelckes Feldberichte published in 1916.

Other pilots who died in combat, such as Max Immelmann, had their collections of letters published. The ace symbolized everything people thought a warrior should be. They followed the moral code of war which many felt had been forgotten in the trench war by the land troops. In some ways this was true. Flyers respected each other’s abilities, even if they were the enemy, because each knew the difficulties and dangers that others faced in the sky.

In no country was this public role more important than in Germany. Before the war, the government had worked hard to promote the zeppelin as the aerial weapon of the German people, successfully gaining massive public support. But as the war progressed, the airplane proved to be a more effective weapon, and the government needed to shift popular support away from the zeppelin. For this they used the aces, promoting them as modern knights—brave, daring, and chivalrous--who embodied all that was best about the German warrior. The nation’s highest military honour, the Pour le Merite, was given to aces. They dined with princes. Children collected trading cards with their images. When Oswald Boelke died, he was given a funeral worthy of royalty. The German public loved the aces and threw their support behind the airplane.

In keeping with their image of modern knights, many of the public believed that aces would stop firing when his opponent ran out of ammunition or in some way could not fire back. But pilots said they rarely did this. In fact, in his autobiography, German ace Manfred von Richthofen (the "Red Baron") said he once made the mistake of allowing a pilot with a jammed machine gun to land in order to be captured instead of killed. When von Richthofen landed beside the plane, the downed pilot suddenly opened fire on him. Having been tricked once, von Richthofen decided never to be gullible again and always fought until the plane had crashed with a dead pilot.

 
Manfred von Richthofen was the most famous ace of the war.

Aces almost always preyed on two-seat reconnaissance planes or anyone else who was unlikely to defeat them. The picture of two knights jousting often depicted in stories of the aces, even on book covers and recruiting posters, was largely fictional. German doctrine said to attack only when there was an advantage. The aces who survived were always careful and never reckless. Thus, battles between two aces were rare, and even in those unusual cases where two pilots engaged each other in battle, the airplanes or machine guns involved were rarely equal.

The possibility of earning the title of ace was a strong incentive for these competitive and proud pilots to risk their lives repeatedly, spurring many through their first months of combat. Once they had become aces, the lure of medals and prestige continued to drive them. When compared to other military groups, combat pilots won a disproportionate number of military medals. Also, solo pilots, away from the eyes of a commanding officer or co-pilot, could engage the enemy without the threat of court martial or other punishment.

The downside was that many pilots took extreme risks. Of the 20 highest scoring aces, 12 were killed in action. (Incidentally, the top five American aces, led by Eddie Rickenbacker with 26 victories, survived the war.) The higher ranked an ace was, the more often he had placed himself in extreme danger to achieve his military goals, and the greater the probability that he would die fighting. For many pilots, death was the only way to stop their climb in the rankings.

 
Rene Fonck was the highest scoring ace for France and the Allies.

For many World War I aviators, however, death arrived not through the enemy but through the equipment that took them into battle. It was said that the Sopwith Camel killed more British pilots than the enemy did because of the airplane’s handling problems. The Fokker DR.V’s top wing had a tendency to peel off in flight. These dangerous airplanes, plus the lack of pilot experience and the absence of parachutes, made a deadly combination.

 
Georges Guynemer was France's most popular ace.

Whatever the realities, the aces became the heroes of the war. And they have passed into the pages of modern mythology. They presented a vision of war based on past virtues like chivalry and decorum. But they were also modern-day heroes: they flew machines instead of riding horses, and many were from the middle class, not the aristocracy. This new age meant men such as Georges Guynemer, a weak, sickly son of an insurance salesman, could become a national hero and be memorialized in the Pantheon with other French heroes like Voltaire, Victor Hugo, and Marie Curie. And in his death, Guynemer reached an unsurpassed level of mythology--his airplane simply disappeared during a dogfight in September 1917. Neither the airplane nor Guynemer was ever found. In the minds of the French, their great hero simply flew into the heavens, like a Greek god.