AIRCRAFT COLOURS AND MARKINGS OF THE FIRST
WORLD WAR ERA
United States Air Service
The United States Air Service entered WW1 unprepared to fight a modern
war, and relied on its allies to provide aircraft. In the beginning this
meant the British Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter, and the French Renault AR.1/2
and Nieuport 28. By the summer of 1918, the SPAD XIII, Sopwith Camel,
Breguet 14 and Salmson 2A2 replaced these older aircraft.
An oft-repeated statement is "The only US built aircraft to
reach the front were the so-called 'Liberty Planes'"
the Dayton-Wright, Standard, and Fisher built deHavilland DH4 powered
by the V-12 'Liberty' engine. This isn't strictly true as the various
members of the Curtiss flying boat family - H4, H8, H12 and H16 - were
used to great effect by the RNAS/RAF, and there were great hopes for the
LUSAC-11 which would have entered squadron service in 1919
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