Knights Without Parachutes

On the twelfth day of combat, my squadron gave to me Twelve gunners gunning, Eleven valves a-leaking, Ten pilots griping, Nine bullets glancing, Eight blades not spinning, Seven pilots sweating, Six bombers laying, Five victories! Four flaming Fokkers, Three Frenchmen fired, Two hurtled down, And one Nieuport in a pine tree. Notes: 1. For engineers who are busy subtracting seven pilots sweating from eight blades not spinning, and wondering where the other pilot is - well, there's the one in the pine tree. 2. About "bombers laying" - the Red Baron, before he was a fighter pilot, flew in a bomber. In...

Stephen Thompson was associated with a lot of American firsts. He flew as an observer in the First Aero Squadron, which was not only named "First" but really was first. The First Aero Squadron got its name by being the first squadron of aviators operating in the US Army, flying the first American aviation mission launched from American soil over a foreign country (i.e. Mexico, which is about 4 miles away from Columbus, New Mexico, where they launched from) to keep an eye on Pancho Villa for Pershing. Remember, Pancho Villa's attack on New Mexico was in its way worse than the Pearl...

Wikipedia has the wrong Hall pictured as James Norman Hall We found this out when Ewan Tallentire designed an earlier SPAD shirt, and almost had it printed before Andy Parks mentioned that oh, by the way, that wasn't James Norman Hall's face. The picture is actually of Bert Hall, who also flew for the Lafayette Escadrille, but with a less distinguished career. Distinguished or not, Bert Hall had a more distinctive-looking face, and what with the importance of visual branding on the Internet, Bert Hall's face could end up permanently attached to James Norman Hall's name. Which raises the question,...

Lufbery: few know his name, many benefit from his deeds There were many highlights of the Dawn Patrol Rendezvous, but the one we were most excited about was meeting the family of Raoul Lufbery and hearing his story from Raoul Lufbery III. Someone observed that during the roundtable of Lafayette Escadrille relatives that Andy Parks hosted, there was probably more expertise in WWI aviation in that room than anywhere else in the country, or maybe the world. It was also interesting to hear that nearly all the known descendants of Lafayette Escadrille pilots are still associated with aviation to this day. The Lufbery...

The SPADs are coming!  Actually, the shirts are already here, but it may take a few days to get them listed. This design celebrates James Norman Hall of the Lafayette Escadrille, who along with fellow American pilot Charles Nordhoff co-wrote many books. More about him and the most famous book, Mutiny on the Bounty, later. So what's a SPAD? Eddie Rickenbacker explains: I hurried to the field.  There they were, three beauties.  [The Spads.]  They were more impressive by far than any other airplane, any other automobile, any other piece of equipment I had ever seen.  This new Spad would...