WWI Aircraft Radio Equipment

I don't believe they used radio equipment in WW 1 ac.

Good day, F Marion

i belived they used the top secret kind(hand signals)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There was sporadic use. My friend has already gathered enough information on British use and is looking for more on French and Russian equipment.

Any help TIA.

Tom

Francis Marion wrote:

FWIW The Royal Flying Corps was experimenting with radio transmitters in aircraft when the war started. With the advent of static trench warfare all sides recognized that the ability of an aircraft to communicate with artillery batteries and regulate their fire would be of great value and everyone started developing transmitters for "Art Obs". I believe the Germans even went so far as to differentiate their "Fleiger Abteilung" (Flying sections) into A suffix (artillery) and R (photo reconnaissance) types. The "A" type had radios fitted for communication with the artillery batteries. There were several excellent descriptions of artillery missions in the old Cross & Cockade publications and the later publications of the Society of W.W.I Aero Historians by former Lieutenant Hans Gerd Rabe, who had flown in a German Recon unit in the war. By 1918 the Royal Air Force was experimenting with further uses for radios in fighter squadrons. I don't remember which book it is in but the author mentions several flights where a radio transmitter was fitted in the flight leader's aircraft and receivers were in the flight member's aircraft. They apparently didn't take the "advance" very seriously as he commented that the trailing aerials were viewed as dangerous and their flight commander would sing to them over the radio during takeoff and climb but then everyone would wind in that damned aerial. Germany fitted both transmitters and receivers in the Zeppelins. The British always knew when a "Zepp" had lifted off out or Nordholz because the Zeppelin Commander would send a message to the Zeppelin command center by radio telling the time he had lifted off and what useful weight he was carrying and some other statistical data. When the British listening stations heard these transmissions they knew there was a Zeppelin up. Since an experienced operator could identify other operators by their sending habits, their "fist" as it was termed (we are in the era of teletype keys and dot-dash transmissions here) it was soon possible to tell by the number of transmitters how many were up and if there were above a certain number a raid on England instead of just a reconnaissance over the North Sea could be expected.

Bill Shuey

in the battlebags book, it's pretty clear that most of the brit airbags had radio.

William H. Shuey wrote

iirc, there's a W.E. Johns Biggles story in which Biggles, equipped with a radio to send morse instructions to an artillery battery accidentally downs an Albatros with his trailing aerial.