Manfred von Richthofen shot down eighty aircraft over the Western Front, more than any other pilot of the First World War, and became a propaganda hero to Germany before his death at twenty-five. This History Hit production traces his path from Prussian cavalry officer to the pilot who commanded Jasta 11, the squadron known as the Flying Circus for its brightly painted aircraft and von Richthofen's own red Fokker triplane. Historians walk through his combat record, the tactics that made aerial dogfighting a science rather than a gamble, and the culture of chivalry and celebrity that grew around fighter aces on both sides of the war. The film also works through the competing theories about April 21, 1918, the day he was killed over the Somme, weighing Australian ground fire against rival pilot Roy Brown's claimed kill. Archival photographs, wartime footage, and aviation experts fill in the mechanics of early air combat, and the film treats von Richthofen as both a skilled tactician and a manufactured myth.