An Imperial German Pfalz E.I fighter about to land somewhere on the Western Front, April 1916.
When one thinks of Great War aviation one tends to think of biplanes and triplanes but from the onset, monoplanes were also present above the European battlefields.
The French in particular started the war with several monoplanes in service: the Morane Saulnier H and later in the year the L and N, the Deperdussin TT, the R.E.P. N, and the Nieuport 6M.
The Germans had the Rumpler Taube and the Pfalz A.I and E.I., and later in 1915 the Fokker E ‘Eindecker’, responsible for the period between July 1915 and early 1916 known to Allied pilots as the “Fokker scourge”.
The Pfalz E series was not as successful as the Fokker which was faster, sturdier, and more maneuverable. The Pfalz E.I was basically a license-built Morane Saulnier H with later versions (E.II, III, IV and V) receiving more powerful engines and synchronized machine guns. The variant produced in greater numbers was the Pfalz E.II with 130 machines built between September 1915 and February 1916.
Original: unknown (possibly Drakegoodman’s collection) generation