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