My pocket Diary has a daily anniversary for events of the past,and I noticed that next Monday,5 October,shows that it is the Anniversay of the first Air Battle in 1914.
Can anyone say who was involved and where it was ?

Sotonmate

On October 5 1914 a French Voisin III shot down a German Aviatik BII, but the first time an aircraft destroyed another aircraft in combat happened on September 8 1914 when Russian pilot Pyotr Nesterov rammed an Austrian Albatros BII, killing himself and the crew of the Albatros in the process.

There's a bit of information on the October 5 and September 8 combat here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voisin_III

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyotr_Nesterov

Two Curtiss Golden Flyers apparently exchanged fire over Mexico in 1911.

Also see http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/i...st&p=889155

Correction I should have checked instead of relying on memory - it was 1913 the two pilots being Dean Ivan Lamb and Phil Rader (later Lt Col USAAF) over the trenches at Naco Mexico.
In the Balkan wars there were occassions when aerial combat could have taken place but as most of the pilots had trained together at the same schools and were often friends there was a tacit agreement that aircraft did not fire on each other.

Thank you !

Sotonmate