What was the first recorded use of Aerial Weapons in warfare?

Question

Fighter planes were popularised by their extensive use in WWI. What Aerial weapons were used before that period (if any)? What is earliest recorded use of Aerial Attacking and what was the technology employed?

Answer 1

Supposedly, the first time aviation was used in a war was during the American Civil War (meaning 1861). Both parties used balloons for reconnaissance, mostly hydrogen-filled. The balloons obviously couldn't be used for any kind of attack - they made a very big target and a single bullet was sufficient to ignite the hydrogen. Edit: It seems that first use of balloons for reconnaissance was earlier, during the French Revolution in 1794 (thanks @Nikko). The Austrians attempted to use balloons for bombing in 1849 and some of their successors apparently did so even with success - read the linked article.

The first time aviation played an important role was during World War I however (airplanes by then). It took some time to recognize the potential here, airplanes were mostly used for reconnaissance again. Using bombs was relatively rare and very experimental - typically the pilot would take a bomb and throw it overboard. As you can imagine, the precision of such bombing wasn't exactly high.

Air combat was also rare in WWI, with the necessary technologies still developing. The very first problem was mounting a machine gun so that it could shoot without damaging the propeller. Synchronized machine guns only became the accepted solution during the war, at the beginning of the war a bunch of other solutions were attempted as well. One option were machine guns mounted on the wings of the aircraft, the pilot then had to pull strings to trigger them (something that wasn't quite easy while steering the aircraft at the same time).

There is a large Wikipedia article on the use of aviation in World War I where you can find more details.

Answer 2

The first use of aeroplanes (as opposed to lighter-than-air balloons or dirigibles) in warfare occurred during the Italian invasion of Ottoman Libya in 1911. Airplanes were used initially for reconnaissance and then later in an improvised attack, when an Italian pilot dropped explosives by hand on Ottoman troops.