Aeronautics and war have often been connected.
The booming of aviation happened during WWI. After the exploits of the Wright brothers, Clement Ader, and Louis Bleriot, aeronautics slowly started to thrive.
But we had to wait for 1914 to see many machines able to fly properly : bombers, fighter planes...
Sky has been the theater of numerous fierce and decisive dogfights.

The most famous pilot of this period was The Red Baron, a German aviator who got one medal after another, and took part in many victorious dogfights, before getting killed in action.

WWII held several turning points, and it was often the case in the skies.
For instance, Great Britain has never abdicated in spite of the continuing air raids of the Luftwaffe, and the United States took part of the conflict after the Pearl Harbor attack by the Japanese planes...

Nowadays, fighter planes have become one of the technological asset of some countries and also hold the leading role in many films such as Top Gun, Apocalypse Now, Pearl Harbor or Sky Fighters...