A must for history

[Furball]

The wings have no wing spar on first world war aircraft, they get their strength through wires and bracing struts linking both wings together...  although there were cases of aircraft returning with shot up wires/missing sections of wings, i bet the vast majority just fell out of the sky!

Ripping off wings pulling too many G was common in WWI, especially in the early part of the war.

[Nilsen]

The Gladiator would be fun and even has a closed cockpit

snippet from wiki:

"The Gladiator pilots of the Norwegian Jagervingen (fighter wing) at Fornebu Airport, having seven serviceable planes on the day, managed to shoot down five German aircraft on 9 April 1940, the first day of the invasion of Norway: two Messerschmitt Bf 110 fighters, two He 111 bombers and a Ju 52 transport. One Gladiator was shot down during the air battle, by the future Experte Helmut Lent, while two were destroyed on the ground, being strafed while refuelling and rearming at Fornebu airport. The four remaining fighters were ordered to land wherever they could away from their Fornebu base. The planes scattered, landing on frozen lakes around Oslo and never returned to battle, being abandoned by their pilots and then wrecked by souvenir searching civilians.[3]"

[trigger2]

Originally posted by Furball
The wings have no wing spar on first world war aircraft, they get their strength through wires and bracing struts linking both wings together...  although there were cases of aircraft returning with shot up wires/missing sections of wings, i bet the vast majority just fell out of the sky!

Ripping off wings pulling too many G was common in WWI, especially in the early part of the war.

so, that'd still be a blast :]
i'd love to fly a bi-plane into combat just to count the seconds of how long i'd last, and hey, if i'm lucky, get a couple kills :]