Having tried and failed to design interrupter gear to allow machine guns to fire forward through the propellor of his aircraft, French World War 1 pilot Roland Garros (yes, him) installed deflector plates on his aircraft’s propellor
that allowed a forward firing machine gun to be successfully used in combat. In his first mission he shot down five unsuspecting enemy aircraft before being shot down himself by ground fire behind enemy lines. The Germans took the failed interruptor gear from his aircraft and successfully developed a working version. Within a very short period the Fokker Eindecker was developed and used in combat, decimating the Royal Flying Corp and Franch airforce in what became known as ‘The Fokker Scourge’. The French responded again in a very short period by developing the Nieuport fighter with interrupter gear that was superior to the Eindecker in every way imaginable leading to the Eindecker being withdrawn from service and being replaced by the Albatros.
The arms race was alive and kicking during WW1, with advances in aviation in particular being dramatic and rapid just a dozen years after the Wright Brother’s first powered ‘lighter than air‘ flight.