How the airplane became a tool of war

Since the Ming dynasty, the concept of aircraft as a tool for war has been a work in progress. In the early days of aircraft, they were used in a reconnaissance role. The ancient chinese militaries would strap unarmed soldiers to large kites to survey the battlefield for enemy troop movements. This eventually turned into airships and other lighter-than-air aircraft as helium and propane gasses became available. This went on unchanged until the wright brothers perfected their 1906 design for commercial use. The US army air corps began to make tweaks to their designs aided heavily by the wright-martin and later the curtis-wright corporations. Eventually, designs like the Curtis JN-4 and the Wright model L rose to compete with the german albatros. Although these planes were revolutionary to military planners, giving them a new insight into troop movements, their limited payload, range, and combat capability made them a logistical challenge that many commanders did not want to deal with. However, private sector companies like the wright corporations and sopwith began to make substantial progress in the development of the airplane to make it the dogfighting workhorse that we all associate with the great war. First of these being aerodynamic discoveries that made the development of more efficient wings possible. This solved many of the payload challenges that were seen in many of the earlier designs. Doing this allowed for more fuel, equipment/payload, and aviators on airplanes. The range that aircraft could travel without refueling increased drastically. As did the mission capabilities of the aircraft themselves. Reconnaissance planes were able to carry a second crewman who could operate a camera. This quickly gave way to another hurdle however. The effectiveness as a reconnaissance too made aircraft a high priority target. Advances in anti aircraft technology made low level aerial photography too dangerous to risk. However, by this point pilots who were itching to make a difference on the battlefield began to carry handguns and several hand grenades in the cockpit with them. Those pilots who risked flying the very low and very fast passes over enemy trenches began dropping grenades and small arms fire. While the direct effects of this were minimal at best, the concept of using airpower in a combat role revolutionized how wars were fought. Military armorers fitted rear facing machine guns like the american Browning model 1913 air cooled machine gun to aircraft to be operated by a secondary crewman. However this did not allow for much ground attack capability. This problem was later solved by the invention of the synchronization gear. This large engine component allowed manufacturers to mount forward facing machine guns. The synchronization gear was revolutionary because it allowed pilots to fire the weapon through the blades of the propeller without striking the blades. Synchronized machine guns were devastating on the battlefield. Pilots began to strafe enemy trenches killing hundreds of soldiers. In turn came the necessity of commanders to secure air superiority. Thus the fighter was born. Designed specifically for the purpose of gunning down enemy attack aircraft, these fighters were light, agile, and armed to the teeth in order to gain  the upper hand on their enemy. Over the course of history, airplanes developed to into the reconnaissance, ground attack, and fighter roles that we are all familiar with. No longer were airplanes small wood and fabric contraptions, but fast, aluminum machines designed to shape how war itself was fought.