Military aviation began with a French observation balloon in 1794
Just eleven years after the first practical balloons rose in 1783, the French Aerostatic Corps sent one up to watch the Battle of Fleurus, the first major battle observed from the air. Armies adopted the Wright brothers' aeroplane almost as quickly, and the US Navy kept flying balloons until 1963.
Balloons served through the 19th century, spotting enemy movements and scattering propaganda in the Napoleonic and Franco-Prussian wars. During World War I German Zeppelins bombed British cities as well as scouting. The US Navy's first non-rigid airship in service, the K-1, arrived in 1931, and the American Blimp MZ-3 carried out Navy research as late as 2006 to 2017.
In 1909 the US Army bought the two-seat Wright Military Flyer for its Signal Corps, and by the time it retired in 1911 aircraft had become important to several armies. Aeroplanes flew reconnaissance and bombing missions in the Italo-Turkish War, aircraft first worked alongside navies during the First Balkan War, and photo reconnaissance followed in the Second. World War I brought purpose-built fighters, long-range bombing, carrier-launched planes, medical evacuation and rockets fired at observation balloons.
Between the wars autogyros and helicopters appeared. World War II saw decisive air battles, the first jet combat missions, the first cruise and ballistic missiles, paratroops and airdropped cargo. In the Cold War jets broke Mach 1 and then Mach 2, missiles largely replaced guns, air-to-air refuelling became practical, and stealth designs entered development in the 1970s and first saw combat in the 1980s.
Warplanes fall into families. Fighters hunt other aircraft and escort bombers; bombers, larger and less nimble, strike ground targets, as the Handley Page O/400, the B-17 Flying Fortress and the B-52 Stratofortress did in successive eras. Attack aircraft such as the Soviet Ilyushin Il-2 support troops, and some transports have been armed with side-firing guns as gunships. Multirole designs like the Eurofighter Typhoon can switch between air and ground missions, sometimes within one sortie. Non-combat types such as tankers and transports carry weapons, if any, only for self-defence.
Source: Military aircraft
