Book of Aeroplane silhouettes

1918 'Silhouettes d’Avions: Allies et Ennemis' aircraft-recognition manual produced in Paris and printed by Paul Dupont. Issued to the French army in the First World War to distinguish Allied from enemy aircraft. The Manual features scaled 1:200 diagrams of French, English, Italian, German, and Belgian aircraft.

Silhouettes d’Avions: Alliés et Ennemis (Aeroplane Silhouettes: Allies and Enemies) is an aircraft recognition manual issued to the French Army in 1918, during the First World War. Produced in Paris and printed by Paul Dupont, the Manual was created for airmen and ground troops to distinguish Allied from enemy aircraft at a time of rapid advancement in aviation technology. The Manual features 1:200 scale diagrams of French, English, Italian, German, Belgian and American aircraft.

First World War aeroplane recognition started from posters and then evolved into manuals, the first of which were published between 1914 and 1915. The French produced the earliest manual of plane silhouettes, Silhouettes d’Avions, which was later issued in English.

First World War aircraft identification manuals, particularly the earliest examples, were not always successful. They sometimes created confusion and made accurate recognition difficult for the untrained eye because of their stylised illustrations, which covered a limited range of models and showed generalised rather than specific features. They were also frequently updated, with the new images showing differing illustrations. As the war progressed, the quality of the illustration improved, aiding identification.

The Manual is a great example of the scientific and technological development of warfare, and shows how knowledge about scientific innovation was documented, standardised, and disseminated to lay audiences during a transformative period in aviation. It tells a story of both the life-or-death stakes of early aircraft identification and the gradual refinement of how scientific knowledge was communicated under wartime pressure.