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In 1914, merely 11 years after the Wright brothers made their first flight at Kittyhawk, the world plunged into war. As the conflict in Europe ground towards a year long stalemate in the trenches, aviation became one of the primary means of seeing beyond the enemy's front and of carrying the battle past the desolation of No Man's Land. The task of these early pilots was to scout enemy positions, spot for artillery, carry out light bombing, and deny the use of the air to the enemy for those same purposes. At the start of the war, unarmed planes simply carried a pilot and an observer aloft on scouting flights. When enemy aircraft passed each other nothing more than a wave was exchanged. It wasn't long, however, before pilots started bringing rifles to fire at enemy aircraft. These evolved into machine gun mounts for the observer, and then to single seat machines with machine guns mounted above or to the side of the propeller and, finally, to synchronized machine guns firing through the propeller of the ever more advanced aircraft designs. The fighter plane was born. The average life span of a pilot at the front was woefully short. The aircraft were fragile, often experimental, and the pilots lacked useful devices such as parachutes. Although many accounts recall the chivalry of the air, the war for the skies was a brutal and unforgiving business. Surviving and succeeding called for skill, daring, and no small measure of luck. In Dawn of Aces, you fly as a pilot for either the Allied or Central powers, and your mission is to actively seek out and shoot the enemy from the sky. If successful, you gain awards, rank, and perhaps fame in the international community of pilots in this mega multiplayer game. If you fail...well...you have an advantage over such famous Aces as Richthofen, Lufbery, Fonck, Ball, Udet, Mannock, Voss, and Richenbacker...because you can just hit Fly again. |
