Great War. Photo Of A Pilot Aboard His Aircraft

The Great War saw the creation and use of a new weapon, the airplane.
Never before had there been a confrontation in the air.
This new corps recruited young people from the upper echelons of society, the upper middle classes and the old aristocracy, and fought using codes inherited from chivalry.
It's hard to imagine today the prestige of the pilots who face each other in singular battles that are closer to tournaments than to the horrific warfare that rages on the ground.
Death or glory, that's the ransom.
This wide shot shows one of these proud, leather-harnessed men aboard his biplane, ready to take to the skies.
Given the already modern fuselage, we're in 1917, 1918, is this a Nieuport or a Salmson, it's hard to tell.
The rear of the fuselage is painted with the number 5 and a bomb to be dropped. This is a sign that aerial combat has already changed in nature and modernized, as we enter the era of the bomber.
We have not yet been able to determine who the pilot was.
The photograph, framed at the time, has in places reacted to the light (the bluish areas), but the whole retains its strength and documentary character.