Air Force Museum
First Shot
On August 20, 1910, Lieutenant Jacob E. Fickel fired a rifle at a ground target while Curtiss pilot Charles F. Willard flew the airplane. The demonstration was an early attempt to use an aircraft for armed attack rather than observation.
In depth
Testing a new military role
The test exposed problems that later designers would have to solve—aiming from a moving platform, recoil, vibration, communication between pilot and gunner, and the danger of firing near a propeller. It is best understood as an experiment that revealed a system of problems, not as a finished weapon.
History & service
The first shot fired from an airplane occurred on Aug. 20, 1910, at Sheepshead Bay race track near New York City. With Mr. Glenn Curtiss piloting, Lt. Jacob E. Fickel fired a rifle at a 3-foot-by-5-foot target from an altitude of 100 feet. The next month, Lt. Fickel and Mr. Curtiss repeated the experiment in Boston, Mass., this time using an Army semi-automatic pistol.
Details that tell the story
Demonstration made on August 20, 1910 · Lieutenant Jacob E. Fickel fired the rifle · Curtiss pilot Charles F. Willard flew the aircraft · The target was on the ground
A new invention becomes a public world
Before airplanes became routine transport, public demonstrations helped establish what they could do. Exhibition flights, races, and crossings placed fragile machines before crowds, officials, and potential customers. The audience saw courage and spectacle. Behind the spectacle were less visible questions about reliable engines, controllable wings, suitable landing grounds, and how to recover when the weather changed.
Different configurations competed at the same time. Some designers placed the propeller behind the pilot; others put it at the front. Biplanes used bracing to make light structures sufficiently rigid. Monoplanes reduced some of that external framework but posed their own structural and handling problems. Balloons and dirigibles remained part of the same aviation world, offering capabilities that early airplanes could not simply replace.
The famous firsts matter, but so does the period immediately after them. Flight schools, licensed manufacture, military trials, mechanics, and spare parts carried an invention outward. An aircraft could influence aviation through the pilots trained on it or the designs adapted from it, even after its own performance became outdated. The machines in Washington and Dayton preserve different points along that process. Their differences show how quickly an experimental achievement became an international industry, and how many people had to turn a remarkable flight into a repeatable service.
