Last week we concluded our study of World War I.
WWI Airplanes
Not at all looking forward to this gloomy era of history, there were some interesting aspects to learn…principally the newly invented flying machine!
Initially, enemies in the air directly shot guns at each other.
That led to technology to attach the gun to the plane, yet there was the problem of the bullets deflecting off the propellers back into the plane.
That led to more technology to synchronize everything so that the bullets fire in between rotations of the propellers.
Snoopy using his dog house as a plane to fight the Red Baron
We also learned about the WWI flying aces, most notably the Red Baron.
At last, the Red Baron is more than a Snoopy cartoon and a man on a pizza box.
Using that imagery for our weekly Socratic Discussion, my kids were perplexed.
Oh, right, they don’t have the same background as I do from my childhood.
On my computer I pulled up Snoopy’s imaginative exploits in the air with his doghouse on the old Peanuts cartoons.
Then I found old Red Baron pizza commercials.
After watching a few, my kids agreed with me, the classic Snoopy flying through the air on his doghouse from a clip from Peanuts was the best!
Smithsonian exhibit of the Wright Brothers invention of the air plane
Now that we conquered lots of books for our WWI studies, we returned to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington DC.
Our first visit last summer included a whirlwind tour before they closed, of the Wright Brothers.
Returning last month, we had a few hours to pick up at the Wright brothers’ exhibit, again running out of time to read and see everything about this invention.
On this third trip my son demonstrated the complex yet interesting wind tunnel interactives from the Wright Brothers’ experiments.
Airplanes in WWI Smithsonian exhibit
Finally completing the fascinating Wright Brothers’ exhibit, we advanced to airplanes in WWI.
Eleven years after sustained flight was achieved for 59 seconds, the technology was used to fight in WWI.
However, it was so primitive, that guns were shot from the pilots’ hands while flying.
Flight in the first quarter of the 20th century was a novelty, unique from the rest of flight history.
Snoopy, Red Baron, and Knights of WWI
The opening displays were of none other than the Red Baron himself.
In one window was the classic Red Baron pizza box amongst other items. (ha! The kids never would have understood that if I hadn’t brought it up in the Socratic Discussion!)
In this window was one of my favorite imaginative dogs, Snoopy. (Again, our Socratic Discussion for the win so my kids could understand the museum experience!)
Wow, the Red Baron was fascinating, added to all we had read about him. (Stay tuned for a future post on that topic!)
Then we got to see some old movies from the 30’s, about the dog fights in WWI, which included Carey Grant and Fred Astaire in different movies!
These early war aviators were called knights of their era, which was romanticized by the movie industry.
Vintage WWI Planes on Display
After the movies, we saw vintage planes from WWI: Germany, Britain, and France.
Interestingly, stropp means cheeky in German. Quite possibly the agitators of the war saw themselves as the better suited to air flight while antogonizing the allied forces.
One video clip showcased an elderly man who was one of the WWI flying aces.
Lafayette Sighting!
To my surprise, I learned of the formation of WWI aviators who comprised the Lafayette Escadrille.
These guys obviously knew their history!
Like Lafayette who joined our fight for liberty in 1777, years before the country of France officially lent support, the American pilots also lent themselves to France during WWI in 1914, before the country of America entered the war in 1918.
