Air Service, United States Army Gervais Raoul Victor Lufbery (March 14, 1885 – May 19, 1918)[1] was a French and American fighter pilot and flying ace in World War I.

Lufbery's father, Edward moved to Chamalières in 1876, joining his elder brother, George and soon met a local Frenchwoman, Anne Joséphine Vessière,[2] who would later become his wife.

[11] Late in 1914, Lufbery was accepted into the pilot training program and was assigned to fly reconnaissance missions with Escadrille VB 106.

Lufbery, as an American citizen with aeronautics experience, was recruited and joined the unit on 24 May 1916 and was assigned a Nieuport fighter.

Lufbery spoke English with a thick French accent and had little in common with his comrades, most of whom were from wealthy families and were Ivy League educated.

In addition, according to Eddie Rickenbacker in his book, Fighting the Flying Circus, Lufbery is credited with having invented the precursor to the modern airport flight pattern.

This process eventually became the "Down Wind, Base, and Final" standard airport pattern that pilots use every day in VFR flight.

[citation needed] He was commissioned in the United States Army Air Service in late 1917 with the rank of Major.

The United States Army Air Service was equipped with Nieuport 28 fighters, but due to supply problems, many lacked armament.

The 94th's first combat patrol on 6 March 1918, saw Lufbery leading Rickenbacker and fellow flyer Doug Campbell in unarmed airplanes.

[22] At an altitude variously estimated between 200 and 600 feet, Lufbery was said to have jumped out of the plane, either to avoid a fiery death or as an attempt to land in the nearby Moselle River, rather than being thrown from the cockpit after it flipped over above the village of Maron.

However, on-site research by Royal D. Frey of the National Museum of the United States Air Force (then the Air Force Museum) established in 1962 that witnesses on the ground below the action saw the plane, not burning, flip over, and Lufbery was thrown out, having unfastened his seat belt to clear a jam in his machine gun during his final fight.

[citation needed] A sculpture of Lufbery and an airplane form the Harmon International Trophy, an award given annually beginning in 1926 to honor achievements in aviation.

[24] Although Lufbery only lived in Wallingford for a short period of time, it was his official home address, and a number of public facilities are named after him, including an avenue, a park, a VFW building, and a highway ramp.

[25] The road linking Interstate 91 exit 13 to Route 5 in Wallingford is called the Major General Raoul Lufbery Memorial Highway.