Feldflieger Abteilung

Feldflieger Abteilung (FFA) or Field Flying Companies were the pioneering field aviation units of the Luftstreitkräfte (German air service) in World War I.^[1]

Composition

Fokker E.II 35/15 from Feldflieger Abteilung 14 preparing to land on the Eastern Front.

The use of aircraft as a tactical reconnaissance tool was established by the German Army in its annual exercise in June 1911. Early usage was limited to providing post-flight situation reports. At the start of World War I, there were thirty-three units, comprising one allocated to each of the eight Army Headquarters and one to each of the twenty-five regular Corps Headquarters.^[2] Each unit, having a designation number usually matching that of the army group it was assigned to, was equipped with either six Idflieg Category A (unarmed monoplane) or Category B (unarmed biplane) two-seater aircraft. By March 1915 the number of Feldflieger Abteilung had doubled and the ideas for separate specialist fighter and bomber units, known as Jastas and Kampfgeschwader, respectively, were beginning to be conceived, not forming formally under such names until the reformation of the Fliegertruppe into the Luftstreitkräfte by October 1916.

List of FFAs

Unit No.	Location	Attachment	Notable Personnel
6b	Bühl airfield, near Saarburg	Bavarian	Kurt Wintgens, Friedrich Marnet
9b		Bavarian
10	Vrizy		Max Immelmann
23	Roupy		Hans Joachim Buddecke, Ernst Freiherr von Althaus, Rudolf Berthold
48	Mülhausen		Kurt Wintgens
62	Douai		Oswald Boelcke, Max Immelmann, Otto Parschau

Notes

1. van Wyngarden, G. p.6
2. Cowin, H.W. p.13

References

• Van Wyngarden, G. (2006). Early German Aces of World War 1, Osprey. Oxford. ISBN 1-84176-997-5
• O'Connor, M. (2001) Airfields & Airmen – Ypres, Leo Cooper. ISBN 0-85052-753-8
• Cowin, H. W. (2000) German and Austrian Aviation of World War 1, Osprey. Oxford. ISBN 1-84176-069-2