h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Years ago I had a software program that was a WWI dog fight simulator. I gave up on it because it was too hard to get a 3 dimensional perspective on a small, flat screen. But there was a booklet that came with it that gave a good history of WWI air battles. It said that the reason von Richthofen was sucessful was that he exempted himself from the flight procedures that the other pilots had to follow. They were supposed to stay in tight formations, but von Richthofen's reputation allowed him to disregard this procedure, and to fly solo. He would fly much higher than the other pilots and stay between them and the sun. When the German formations were attacked the Baron would swoop down out of the sun and pick off the attackers, whose attention was otherwise engaged. Some of the aces for the allied countries also used this tactic.

One of the Discovery Channels aired a special on the death of the Red Baron. They used forensic science, computers, lasers, etc to "determine" who actually shot down Richthoven. From the angle of the bullet wound, (The baron was alive until shortly after crash landing and the bullet was found to have gone through his abdomen but didn't penetrate his flight jacket when it exited), they believe the second man on the ground (Brown I believe) is the most likely to have shot him. The interesting thing is that both the men on the ground and the canadian pilot on his tail were all using the same calibre bullets.