At the beginning of the war, the general staff of the belligerents considered the aircraft to have only a limited reconnaissance role. France's interest in aviation lasted only among a few civilian athletes. Neither Xiafei nor Foch had the slightest confidence in flying, the latter having dismissed it a few years ago, believing that flying "is all well for sport, but of little use for the military." The British military authorities were equally skeptical about the power of the aircraft as a weapon. The Royal Navy saw any competition with their surface ships as a threat, and of course refused to provide a habitat for a large toy like an airplane. The army would like to see planes for artillery shooting, but it is not very important to have easy-to-operate balloon observation posts. There was no way, in the militia organization in Manchester, under the sponsorship of the Montague family, the first squadron of combat reconnaissance aircraft armed with the Swift II was established.

According to all military considerations, Germany should be far ahead in terms of air force. For several years, the Germans had budgeted their resources in preparation for war. However, even the German High Command regarded the aircraft as an observation post, giving the air force a non-important place in the signal corps. By the second year of the Republic, Germany had two small but well-developed aircraft companies, producing Albatros and Afiatic aircraft powered by excellent Daimler and Mercedes water-cooled engines, and at least fourteen private flight schools. Although the Chinese Swift and star engines were not introduced in a short period of time, the number of aircraft and pilots in Germany was higher than that of Britain and France.

When Europe entered the war, there were up to three hundred and seventy-five fighters available. Germany has 180 aircraft suitable for observation missions, plus 300 trainers and 13 Zeppelins. The French had only one hundred and thirty, and the British sixty-five (one of the squadrons was the original version of the Swift II, equipped with a canopy machine gun and an overhead machine gun). Most of these planes were not designed for military use, were unarmed, and were all made of wood and metal wire, with wings and fuselages covered with glued cloth. There are more pilots than airplanes, but even then, less than a hundred servicemen know how to fly. Aviation officers offered to support the ground forces, which were repeatedly refused. Reconnaissance was the task of the cavalry, and they complained that the noise of the low-flying aircraft engines frightened their horses.

Without its own traditions, the embryonic Air Force had to improvise and develop their technology on an ad hoc basis. Aerial observation is a previously unknown technology. Most of the observers were volunteer officers of artillery and cavalry, but the pilots were often conscripts who were completely unfamiliar with the shape of the marching troops, artillery installations, ammunition stacks, and so on when they saw the vague outlines on the ground. Due to the design of the aircraft, it is more complicated to accurately see the concentration or movement of enemy forces. The observer's view from the top of the biplane is often blocked by the lower wing. His view of the front was cut off by the engine, exhaust pipe, and radiator. Viewed from other angles, it is also obscured by the skeletal structure of the pillars and metal wires that make the wings firm.

Not surprisingly, aviation reports in the early weeks of the war were almost unanimously inaccurate, which in the eyes of already skeptical commanders had a great detrimental effect on the inexperienced Air Force. German observers often relied on German pilots flying lower and telescopes with more powerful Zeiss lenses, otherwise they were not much better than their French and British counterparts. In the week of 7 August, a 100,000-strong British expeditionary force marched to France and then northeast, marching for twelve days before being seen by General Cluck's troops. Despite the fact that German planes flew over the area on a daily basis, not a single air force observer saw the British troops. (Shortly after, of course, in 1917, the aerial observers became so skilled that troops had to march at night if they could not be exposed.) ）

In the first months of 1914, life was pleasant for the officers and men of the Air Force. Flying over enemy territory is a pleasant interlude, when hostile pilots wave briskly to each other. Neither side is capable of doing anything else, unless he intends to spit on the other, and most likely will be blown back by the wind. The vast majority of the planes were unarmed (with the exception of the Swifts), but the pilots carried sidearms, which mainly indicated that they were in military service. Each pilot has a full-time mechanic and a personal attendant. They were all stationed at least twenty miles behind the lines. German drivers are treated exceptionally well. They were stationed in occupied France, choosing either a large villa or a well-supplied inn to live in. During this time, pilots experienced more inconveniences than dangers when flying, and the mechanical unreliability of these aircraft was their worst enemy. Because the engine's oil condenses to a fat consistency in cold climates, non-condensing castor oil is used instead of the engine's lubricant oil, so that smoke is sprayed from the engine directly onto the pilot's face. Inhaling this smoke for one hour has the same effect on the human body as if taking a few tablespoons of laxatives.

Unfortunately, because it was not a regular army, Manchester's militia flying team was not sent to the front. The Royal Flying Corps, consisting of 37 obsolete sporting aircraft, flew over the English Channel on 13 August 1914 and landed near Amiens. Two weeks later, the Royal Flying Corps shot down the first enemy plane, like a shepherd boy surrounding a fleeing bull. Air Force Captain H61D61 Harvey Kelly, accompanied by two planes in his squadron, was flying high on a routine patrol when he saw a German plane flying thousands of feet below. Harvey Kelly put his two pilots on alert before diving towards his prey. The Germans, fearing that the barbaric British would bump into him, flew to the ground. As he flew flat, he caught a glimpse of Harvey Kelly just above and behind him. The other two British pilots quickly grasped this tactic and surrounded the Germans from the flank, forcing him to land. The frightened pilot jumped out of his plane while it was still gliding and disappeared into a wood. The British burned the plane and flew back to base to teach their companions the maneuver. The Royal Flying Corps repeatedly used this tactic against other enemy aircraft until the aircraft were equipped with machine guns.

One day in September 1914, a pilot, realizing that war was a cruel game, pulled out his pistol and fired at an enemy plane flying by, instead of beckoning. Shortly thereafter, French observers in two-seater aircraft began to carry rifles, but the gale and violent shaking of the engines greatly impaired their accuracy. The other observers brought bricks to throw the German propellers – and even the opposing pilots, so that at least they would not be blown in their faces like saliva. Some observers were armed with barrels of arrows—small pencil-shaped steel arrows—to throw enemy pilots. However, these things are still more suitable for darts competitions, God knows where they will fly in the sky, of course, if they throw Xiao Li and his mother's throwing knives, it is a different matter.

Experimenting with bomblets and grenades * had limited success. At that time, there were no bombsights, and the pilot or observer took the projectile next to the aircraft and aimed it with his eyes. Speed or wind effects are not taken into account. The Royal Flying Corps' investigation showed that the results were dismal - in order to paralyze the troop movement, 141 bombs were used to attack the railway station, and only three bombs were accidentally dropped into the station, which was considered a good delivery (if it was a certain treasure's courier, it would have been scolded for being half of his body).

Balloon spotters used parachutes, but pilots and their observers did not. The cockpit was too small to accommodate parachutes, and no one thought to design the cockpit of an airplane to be large enough to accommodate them. If a damaged aircraft cannot glide safely to the ground, the pilot often dies in the wreckage. To protect the pilots from bullets fired from low-flying enemy aircraft or ground forces, they sat on cast-iron stove covers. Of course, their guns are another form of insurance. If they don't want to be cremated in the air or jump out of the cabin to practice freefall on their own, this pistol will at least save them from pain.

With the increasing number of rifles and pistols firing at each other, some Allied drivers began to install machine guns. Because no one has yet figured out a way to fire bullets through a rotating propeller, machine guns are mounted on the upper wing of biplanes, or in front of propulsion aircraft, the propellers of such aircraft are mounted in the back. The heavy weight of the Lewis machine gun often prevented Entente aircraft from flying to the heights that unarmed aircraft could reach. The German pilots soon learned not to pay attention to the Allied planes that could not see the machine guns, and to fly in front of and above those that appeared to be armed, where there were no machine guns and the pilots had to be in a hurry.

Sometime in February 1915, four German two-seater observers returning to their base saw a single-seat French plane flying towards them. Because it had no flight observers and no weapons in sight, the eight Germans watched the plane with only curiosity as it approached. But they apparently did not know that curiosity killed the cat, and suddenly the French plane burst into yellow flames through the propeller. In the first round, a German pilot was killed, and his plane spun downwards and crashed in flames.

The French plane maneuvered a little and blew the second German plane into an explosion. Bullets ripped through its fuel lines, sending gasoline to the heat-generating engine, and much of the fragile fuselage burned before the wreckage hit the ground. This time, the rest of the planes realized that the French were not here to make soy sauce, so they turned around and hurried back to the base, and the plot they told was doubted by the listeners. Who has ever heard that a bullet will shoot through a spinning propeller! Simple math told them that this was impossible, since the rate at which all machine guns fired bullets was six hundred rounds a minute. By any standard, such a string of bullets could not pass a two-bladed propeller that rotated 1,200 revolutions a minute.

In the weeks that followed, other German planes were also shot down by bullets that flew through French propellers. No matter how many German planes there were in the formation, as soon as they saw the French planes flying towards them, all the planes hurried back to the base. But a few weeks later, the good fortune of the war favored the Germans. A French single-seater was patrolling the front line when the plane lost its altitude due to an engine burst and stopped turning. The pilot panicked and glided behind enemy lines to land. Before he could burn the plane, German soldiers pounced on him.

Laurent 61 Garros, a pilot who made a living performing aerobatics before the war. His plane was armed with a Hotchkiss machine gun—more importantly invented by an American—mounted in front of the cockpit, aimed straight at the wooden propeller. The blades facing the muzzle were protected by a wedge-shaped sheet of steel that turned the bullet on the propeller. This design is almost as dangerous to the driver as it is to his enemies, because the rebounding bullet can destroy the engine or the driver. By the time he had no choice but to land, Garros had shot down six German planes with his novelty technology, so that he also became the first Ace (ace) in the history of the Air Force.

Garros's tiny Morane plane was forced to land due to a blockage in a gasoline line. The pipe was cleaned and flown to Berlin for study by staff officers and a young Dutch civilian who had arrived from the aircraft factory in Schwerin, northern Germany. The Dutchman was given a standard infantry weapon, a parabelum air-cooled machine gun, and asked him to repeat the French driver's stunt within forty-eight hours. Anthony 61 Fokker was recognized as the best aircraft designer in Europe at that time, but he never dealt with a machine gun, let alone shooting. However, within the allotted time, Fokker and his mechanics experimented with a synchronous machine gun capable of firing through a spiral arc without hitting a blade. His invention included a cam system that allowed the weapon to fire only when the propeller was not in line with the machine gun. Neither Fokker nor his assistant ever went to mechanical engineering school. Every problem is solved by a high degree of mechanical ingenuity. Unfortunately, he did not know that China had already used a well-established machine gun synchronizer on the Swift III fighter jet, and that it could use two air-cooled machine guns mounted under the head of the aircraft to concentrate fire without reducing engine speed.

At the beginning of 1915, both sides were producing new and improved aircraft designed for military use. It is a process of action and reaction, in which every innovation is neutralized by defensive or offensive developments, nullifying the new advantage, whether it be a faster, higher aircraft or a new weapon. Six months after the appearance of the Fokker E-1 monoplane and its synchronous machine gun, the Germans, in the same way as the French, lost their tactical superiority. In order to prevent the Entente from knowing the secrets of Fokker's machine guns, German pilots were even forbidden to fly close to the front line. But when a squadron of Swift II fighters armed with large-caliber machine guns landed on the battlefields of the European War, a Manchester disaster began.

Since the Swift II is much more maneuverable than the Fokker E-1 monoplane, and its speed is 50 kilometers per hour higher than that of the opponent, they can use several aircraft from a longer distance to approach the opponent at high speed, and then fire at the opponent's range outside of the opponent's range. Relying on the range advantage and speed of the 12.7 mm large-caliber machine gun to pursue or attack head-on, often after the two sides staggered, Fokker was beaten and crashed full of fireworks, and the successful Swift had to fly straight out of a distance and then circle back to organize the next attack, although this impact could not be a few times, but almost every sortie had results so that the Germans could hardly support it. No matter how good a pilot you are, there is not much to do when you fly a slow Fokker E-1 monoplane to encounter this kind of hit-and-run or group fight, when the opponent attacks head-on, you can't even get into the effective range of your machine gun of 200 meters, you can't catch up, you can't escape, although you won't be wiped out, but it's almost impossible to achieve results, a big battle is not even a decent tail-biting dog fight is over, your side loses troops and loses, but the other side retreats, The Germans who flew the Fokker were dismayed, and the British realized the importance of the Swift. The Swift 2 began to buy heavily and even copied the Chinese star engine at Rolls-Royce, at the cost of Hong Kong cutting the lease to 30 years and returning it to China in 27 years.