A report on Fixed-wing aircraft, Fighter aircraft and World War I

Fighter aircraft are fixed-wing military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat.

World War I served as a testbed for the use of the aircraft as a weapon.

The earliest known aerial victory with a synchronized machine gun-armed fighter aircraft occurred in 1915, by German Luftstreitkräfte Leutnant Kurt Wintgens.

However at the outbreak of World War I, front-line aircraft were mostly unarmed and used almost exclusively for reconnaissance.

Fixed-wing aircraft were first used militarily by the Italians in Libya on 23 October 1911 during the Italo-Turkish War for reconnaissance, soon followed by the dropping of grenades and aerial photography the next year.

To shoot down enemy planes, anti-aircraft guns and fighter aircraft were developed.