Bullet proof cockpit glass?

I was watching a show on the History Channel about bullet protection,and they said that the first use of bullet resistant glass in combat was during ww1.They said that some aircraft had it installed in front of the cockpit to give the pilot more protection.Dose anyone know if this is true,and how effective it was?

[Romani]

I came across the following in Jane's Fighting Aircraft, is a translated report on a SE5a captured by the Germans, I was looking for something else, found it, and remembered your post, so I decided to share

A square windshield of Triplex glass is placed in front of the pilot seat

Bullet proof glass? Why not? I believe the technology was available at the time, I think battleships of the time had splinter resistant vision blocks. Hey, when the subject of armored seats or self sealing tanks was brought up in this forum, general knowledge was that no such thing existed in WWI, until some obscure reference in a source surfaced.

[Romani]

Well, doing internet search, I am not sure if that Triplex glass was really bulletproof or is just "safety glass" designed not to splinter under impact. I found the following, straight from the manufactured. Didn't know the cutouts in the wing were covered with glass, you learn something new every night

http://www.planefacts.co.uk/world_wa..._glass_gif.htm

http://www.planefacts.co.uk/world_wa..._glass_gif.htm

[Romani]

Ok found it, ain't Wikipedia great?

Laminated glass was invented in 1903 by the French chemist Edouard Benedictus, inspired by a laboratory accident. A glass flask had become coated with the plastic cellulose nitrate and when dropped shattered but did not break into pieces. Benedictus fabricated a glass-plastic composite to reduce injuries in car accidents. However, it was not immediately adopted by automobile manufacturers, and the first widespread use of laminated glass was in the eyepieces of gas masks during World War I.

Multiple laminates and thicker glass increases the strength. Bulletproof glass panels, made up of thick glass often toughened and several interlayers often thicker than that in windshields, can be as thick as 50 mm


So a bullet resistant windshield could be done at the time, but an actual example must be found. Odds are that the SE5a windshield is simply a "safety glass" and not bulllet proof.

[Dan_San_Abbott]

Romani:
To add to what you posted, In an advertisement in THE AVIATION POCKET BOOK 1918, by R. Borlase Matthews, Triplex Safety Glass states the windshields and goggles are Bullet proof and unsplinterable.
Blue skies,
Dan-San

[Greybeard]

Romani:

Safety and bulletproof glasses are same thing: layered glass. It's a matter of how many interlayers and glass thickness if it may be called "bulletproof".

GB

[EdStevens]

The windscreen from Bishop's Nieuport 17, made of Triplex, used to be on display in our Canadian War Museum for many years and I saw it regularly. Bishop removed it after a close call and kept it for a souvenir. From "Winged Warfare":

My search was rewarded, not by meeting my friends, but by the sudden appearance of two Hun machines flying in the direction of our lines. Drawing a little to one side so as to have a good look at them, I discovered they were being escorted and protected by three other machines flying well back of and above them. By quick thinking I estimated I could make a running attack on the lower two before the upper three could get into the affair. I closed in and fired a burst at the nearer of the two, but the second one got on my tail and, firing very accurately, gave me some of the most uncomfortable moments of my fighting-career. One of his bullets grazed my cap as it passed over my head, then crashed through the little wind-screen just in front of me.

This windscreen was definitely not bullet-proof, for the 7.62 bullet had punched cleanly through, leaving a nice round hole. It was shatterproof, however, and although the glass showed small cracks extending out from the hole, it remained in one piece. The glass was quite thick and strong.