Trench lines cutting across the ground in a ragged zigzag, saps and communication trenches feeding back from them, the whole surface pocked with shell craters until the fields underneath have almost stopped being fields. A road running through. A railway line. Farmland at the edges that somehow still looks like farmland.

It reads like a reconnaissance plate because that's exactly what it's meant to be — the thing two-seater crews died taking, and the thing scouts fought over the top of.

Fly over the ground you're actually fighting for. Most WWI air games happen over a green cloth or a bare table. Put this down and the whole thing makes sense: the trenches are why the observation planes are up there, the lines tell everybody which side is which, and a Camel chasing an Albatros down toward the deck is heading somewhere real.

• Authentic reconnaissance-plate look — trench systems, craters, road, railway and surviving farmland at the scale you'd see them from altitude
• Desaturated olives, browns and chalk. Doped linen, lozenge camouflage, silver and bare wood all read clearly against it, and it photographs beautifully
• Works under 1/144, 1/200, 1/285 and 1/300 aircraft, and as a distant-ground backdrop at larger scales
• No printed features large enough to catch a flight stand or argue about in play
• FeltPro™ felt — a lot lighter than neoprene, folds smaller, lies flat under stands with no rubber backing to bow or curl
• Matte, non-reflective finish. No glare under overhead lights
• Machine washable. Cool wash, tumble dry low

Free shipping on every mat.

Games it suits

Wings of Glory WWI · Canvas Eagles · Blue Max · Check Your 6! Rise of the Aces · Algernon Pulls It Off · Knights of the Air · Ares' Wings of Glory tournament play — plus any Great War air-combat rule set.

Flying a later war? See 10,000 Feet Aerial Mat for open countryside from altitude.

Care instructions
- Machine wash separately: cold (max 30C or 90F), gentle cycle
- Do not bleach
- Tumble dry: low heat
- Do not iron
- Do not dryclean