100 years ago today, on 01-July-1915, German Leutnant Kurt Wintgens, flying an early model Fokker Eindecker shot down a French Morane-Saulnier Type L Parasol scout near Lunéville, France. This was the first victory of an airplane filing a synchronized machine gun through the propeller arc. The French observer fought back with a carbine, but could not hold off the better-armed German airplane.
Wintgens later received the Pour le Mérite. He was a rare fighter pilot who wore glasses. He was killed in action on 25-September-1916.
In July, 2010, we visited the Museum of Flight near Seattle. I took this photo in the Personal Courage Wing, which features airplanes, mostly fighters, from World War One and World War Two. This is a reproduction of a Fokker E.III, a later model than Wintgens flew in 1915.
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