Originally Posted by
Top_Gunn
Not Brumowski, but an excellent guess. Here's your bonus clue.
A name-the-pilot quiz. His name is far from being a household word, but he was very well known in his day.
1. The highest-scoring ace of his service, the highest-scoring ace ever born in what is now a particular country (though it was part of a different country when he was born), and possibly the highest scoring ace in one particular sort of aircraft, though there are no solid statistics about that.
2. After the war, he lived in two countries which had been on the side against which he had fought.
Well, Belgium is still around; although the Kingdom Of Belgium isn't, as such. If you stretch that point, Willy Coppens would appear to fit the other clues. And the plane would be the Hanriot HD.1. Thanks; Ernie P.
Answer: Willy Coppens
Willy Omer François Jean baron Coppens de Houthulst (6 July 1892 – 21 December 1986) was Belgium's leading fighter ace and the champion "balloon buster" of World War I. He was credited with 37 confirmed victories and six probables.
The Hanriot HD.1 was a French World War I single-seat fighter aircraft. Rejected for service with French squadrons in favour of the SPAD S.7, the type was supplied to the Belgian and the Italian air forces with whom it proved highly successful. Of a total of about 1,200 examples built, 831 were in fact produced by Italian companies under licence.