Very Lights for WWI Aircraft

[Miska]

It might be very useful to have flares that can be fired both from aircraft and from fields.  They would be great for special events, and might come in handy for the hapless F2B that gets bounced by a couple of high triplanes just out of icon range of the furball.  I imagine they would also be useful for PT Boats and GVs in the other arenas.

[Lusche]

Fighter planes carried flares in WWI ?

[Miska]

They often did.  And Observers as well.

[Krusty]

Heck, they carried them in WW2 as well. If we get 'em for one, I'd expand the wish to include both.

[ACE]

 

[MachFly]

 

Heck, they carried them in WW2 as well. If we get 'em for one, I'd expand the wish to include both.

But how would you fire them out of a WWII airplane? Closed canopy.

[Krusty]

Many of them had chutes. You stuck the barrel of the flaregun in the chute and shot the flare out it. Even some 109s had it in the forward cockpit windscreen (lower side window pane).


Naturally, only for planes that really had it, but some pilots went into combat strapped with bandoliers of flare rounds for their flare gun.