Weapons

Just barely over a decade after the Wrights' first flight, war clouds gathering on the eve of World War I convinced many that innovation would be needed to improve the airplane's military effectiveness. These hopes were realized when Italian aviator Giulio Gavotti dropped bombs from an Etrich Taube monoplane on Turkish troops in Libya, becoming history’s first aerial bomber in 1911. Today, aircraft are an essential weapon of war along with new technologies that have been developed since.