I'm very curious as to what the reaction was of the first pilot that was shot at. My guess is he was probably be thinking more "Wow, what an asshole," than he would be thinking that the aggressor's action makes sense in the context of war.

That probably was their reaction considering it's usually the governments that have issues with each other, not the people. For instance, I have no problem with Russians or Chinese, I think in general they're nice people, as with any population, but our governments have problems with each other and that causes us to fight.

I get we're, for the most part, fighting the ideologies of the other country, but it's a real shame we can't live in peace. It's the few bad apples - the greedy, the criminals, the oppressors, the deceiving - that ruin it for everybody.

That generally how I think when I "dislike" a nation. Its not individuals, but the governments.

Probably the thought, "Next time I'm bringing a machine gun!"

That's exactly what the little drone said when it got stuck in the police drone's net.

> "Wow, what an asshole,"

Which has a long history between the Germans and French...

Much longer between Brits and French.

Maybe something like - " Bruh... Seriously dude?"

The version of this I heard is that the first air-to-air shots were fired during the Border War (US / Mexico) in around 1911 or 1912. Somebody unloaded his six-shooter and didn't hit a darn thing.

Just before WWI, Caproni designed an airplane with a machine gun mounted above the propeller [0], but the military wasn't that interested in it. It wasn't until the invention of the interrupter gear (credited in part to Roland Garros and part to Anthony Fokker) that air-to-air combat got to be really deadly, on account of pilots being able to fire accurately at other aircraft.

[0] http://www.museumofflight.org/aircraft/caproni-ca20

Note that prior to that gear you would hit your own propeller.

Before, Machine guns were either mounted outside the propeller circle (which made aiming harder) or propellers had deflectors on the back which made them less efficient.

... and a little (quite) dangerous.

I heard bags of bricks were one of the first weapons brought to the skies. This is the type of thing prone for many apocryphal stories.

I heard that they were dropping hand grenades and bombs on people below before shooting other planes in the air.