A leading technological innovation that was introduced in the Great War was the use of aviation as a military tool. The construction in 1903 of the first machine that was able to lift itself off the ground was the first step of a whole revolution in both the civilian and the military field. Nothing was any longer as before.
Many military officers in fact remained initially indifferent to these developments and failed to realize quickly the great advantages that could be derived from the use of airplanes. In Italy the first person to appreciate these benefits was Major Giulio Douhet who was immediately strongly convinced that the use of airplanes would be decisive in a future war. Towards the end of the first decade of the 20th century this led to the first team of the Italian military air force consisting of bombers and fighters.
The first machines were produced by Giovanni Caproni, an engineer from Trento who in 1908 began to patent this type of aircraft (remembered by means of the initials "Ca." followed by a number). Various improvements were made during the war, leading to the famous bomber Ca.46 in 1918 that could fly at 150km/hour and carry bombs each weighing 500kg to be dropped on enemy targets. This was a great advantage and a great innovation that made Italy the leading country in this field. Fighter jets, aircraft with one or two seats equipped with a machine gun for aerial combat, were used instead to a lesser extent. Whereas other countries produced several hundred models of this aircraft, Italy initially preferred not to manufacture these planes and imported some Niuport French machines. It was only in 1916 that Italian fighters, such as the SVA and the Hanriot that were able to fly at over 200km/hour and equipped with machine guns calibre 7.7, appeared in Italian skies.
The development of these models, however, was not enough to make them effective weapons in a war; and the ones who rendered them so were the first aviators and particularly the so called Aviation Aces who were pilots who with their skills were able to give a decisive contribution to the outcome of a battle. This name was usually given only to someone who succeeded in bringing down more than five enemy aircraft. The most famous of all was the German Manfred von Richtofen who was given the nickname of "the Ace of Aces" and the "Red Baron" and who managed to shoot down 80 airplanes between 1914 and 1918. In Italy the most famous exploits were those by Francesco Baracca (who was awarded the Gold Medal for Military Valour), Fulco Ruffo di Calabria, Luigi Goriand Massimo Pagliano. The propaganda stunt that was undertaken by Gabriele d'Annunzio on 09th August 1918 in the skies over Vienna with a SVA 5 was also noteworthy.
