RFC Pilot, Western Front, 1917

One of the most important novelties brought by World War One was the use of aircraft for military purposes. The relatively recent invention had already reached a level of advance in which it could be actually useful for warfare purposes and both sides worked hard to get the upper hand on the aerial branches of their armed forces.

The Royal Flying Corps were the start of the air service branch in Great Britain, founded in 1912. When the war started, their mission was primarily the reconnaissance and photography of enemy positions for the army, mainly for the artillery. As the war progressed, they started engaging German aircraft during those missions and that led to a development of their tasks. At the end of the war, they were even bombing enemy positions and even strategic objectives, like airfields, factories and transportation facilities. On 1918, it was amalgamated with the Royal Air Force.

For the RFC, the war was marked by a constant effort in trying to gain the supremacy of the skies against the German forces. On April 1917, they suffered some of the biggest losses in the whole war during the support operation for the Battle of Arras. The Germans were much better organized in the fearsome flight groups known as Jastas, and had the more advanced Albatros fighters. They lost 275 aircrafts and more than 200 crewman in what would be known as The Bloody April.

Our pilot portrays one of those foolhardy men, brave enough to fight in what it actually was still a somewhat experimental and extremely dangerous branch of warfare. The kit includes two choices of head.