Figure 4 Fokker in the air was an extremely unpleasant looking beast” (2000, 85).”° The technical superiority of Fokker E.III in 1915 and early 1916 made French and British pilots talk of themselves as “Fokker fodder”. Cecil Lewis remembers that in 1915 “a sort of mystery surrounded the Fokker. Nobody knew whether it had a rotary or a stationary engine. Few having been attacked by it had come back to tell the tale [...]. All we knew was that it was an evil-looking monoplane scout” (2003, 53). The counterpart of this German technical wonder was the Nieuport 11 (soon followed by the improved version 17), a fast biplane that many pilots praised as fast, agile, easy to handle, and beautiful. Italian ace Baracca writes enthusiastically about these “new and marvellous machines” (apparecchi nuovi e meravigliosi) (1919, 31), while Scottish pilot MacLanachan accurately describes its features such as the reduced wingspan, the surface of the upper and lower planes, the elegant “V” struts and the essential rigging that made the machine look “smart and tidy” (“McScotch” 1936, 7). Obviously, as a French product, the Nieuport was also very popular among French airmen, both famous like Fonck and unknown like “Lieutenant Marc”, who makes a comparison between this machine and the equally excellent SPAD VII: