War Planes of the First World War

by John McIntosh Bruce

Aircraft profiles of WW I fighter aircraft from Great Britain.

210 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1965

Reviews

[Daniel Rex · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a detailed series of handbooks on Warplanes Of the First World War, this ambitious publication attempt seems to have been inspired by William Green's series on World War II aircraft and I can understand that aviation enthusiasts would greatly enjoy the detailed coverage of some interesting and obscure aircraft in the "Scout", Armed Reconnaissance and Fighter category in those pioneering years of military aviation. This volume is focused on British aircraft in alphabetical order by manufacturer and Avro features heavily with a great many abortive designs that didn't reach significant production and often only feature 1 or 2 prototypes with limited detail about the actual performance figures.
However the Bristol Scout is exhaustively documented and described including its operational successes and notable actions. As well we find more famous aircraft such as the Bristol F.2A and F.2B
De Haviland DH.2 get a long and thorough treatment. Interesting but J M Bruce is not up to the standard of William Green.