Nieuport 17 - Which guns were the standard
I was looking at the older Nexus Ni 17 and it appears that there are several versions (pilot cards) but specifically they can be either the A gun and B gun.
I'm curious, which gun was the most prevalent? I was thinking of using the Charles Nungesser card because of his victories, that card shows and A gun I think.
But still, I'd like to know which was most common.
Thank you,
Last edited by Ken at Sunrise; 02-27-2017 at 05:12. Reason: spell'in n grammar
The French machines had a good synchronisation device and were fitted with Vickers mg; the RFC had a less reliable one at that particular time so their 17's were fitted with over wing Lewis guns.
Some aircraft, particularly French, were fitted with both guns - probably when more powerful power plants came available but a single machine gun was most common.
Sapiens qui vigilat... "He is wise who watches"
Is that the A deck?Originally Posted by flash
No, the 'B' deck.
I laugh in the face of danger - then I hide until it goes away!
Andrea has said previously the reason why so many Entente aircraft which were usually armed with a single MG have two guns is purely for play balance. In past campaigns I have limited Entente aircraft to one gun if they were normally so armed until a pilot achieved ace status whereby they were approved to add a second gun by virtue of their demonstrated air fighting abilities. There are plenty of historical examples of this occurring.
Okay, thanks
Wouldn't adding a second gun alter a plane's flight characteristics? I know the weight of guns could be material to that, at least in some degree.
Yes indeed, which is why it was only the most experienced pilots who knew how to compensate for the added burden.
Yes, it would.
As an example, the Sopwith Triplane was a highly successful fighting scout, but it had the standard armament of one machine gun.
Ten planes were fitted with a second gun, and the pilots reported loss of performance, which was a major factor in the ending of Triplane production, and the introduction of the Sopwith Camel, with its twin guns.
Unfortunately, the game does not penalise "upgunned" aircraft, allowing them the same performance as their single-gunned brethren.
Introducing House Rules to cater for the performance loss does compensate somewhat, but they are generally not well received by overcompetitive opponents.
I laugh in the face of danger - then I hide until it goes away!
Or people who have a hard enough time keeping up with the standard rules of all the games we already play.
Is there a repository of "extra gun" house rules on this site, or some guidelines for devising them?
I don't think so.
The House Rules I have seen in use involved removing cards from the plane's manoeuvre deck (usually the best two sideslips) and adding 1 to the climb counter requirement. Also enforcing a "no Shooting" rule on any Steep card played, as the pilot fights to control the plane.
Reducing the deck to a slower one was considered (ie 'H' down to 'K') but this was a bit extreme, and was not actually enforced.
I laugh in the face of danger - then I hide until it goes away!
This may be getting a little too complex to easily track for me.
Then don't use it!!!!!!!!!
I laugh in the face of danger - then I hide until it goes away!
I would use the rules introduced with the Nieuport 11, which can normally only be armed with a MG OR rockets.
If the N.11 is equipped with both the player cannot plan right and left side slips in the same turn.
It reflects the reduction in manoeuvrability without having to remove cards from the deck.
Yes. As I understand it the single gun was generally used on the 110 hp versions and the twin guns generally on the 120 or 130 hp versions.
It should be noted that the 130 hp Nieuport 24 also tended to be used with one gun which implies there was still a weight/performance penalty, even with the larger engine. Wikipedia makes the same comment about the Nieport 27.
The variation in armament may have a reason - one gun for air-to-air combat, when rate-of-climb and ceiling were paramount, and two guns for balloon busting and trench strafing. That's how I'd fly them!
I never put any thought into this but always felt there should be a penalty for upgunning. Good house rule Tim, I hope you don't mind me borrowing it?
For balloon busting missions you could have one loaded with incendiaries and one with ball ammo Barry !
I can see the extra weight of a second gun & ammo would affect acceleration and climb rate but not the roll rate so much as the guns are centrally mounted, unlike the N.11 where the drag from the rockets is more or less mounted on the wingtips.
I can also see it may affect the stall speed ie when the plane starts to stall but not the affect of the stall so I wouldn't stop it firing on the stall as that would also severely penalise it tactically.
With the broad speed bands we have in game it may not affect the overall game speed either so I'd stick 1 on the climb rate and be done with it.
Sapiens qui vigilat... "He is wise who watches"
I would favour taking one height level off the maximum altitude the aeroplane can reach and add one to the climb counter requirement and leave the rest alone. Penalised by playable.I never put any thought into this but always felt there should be a penalty for upgunning. Good house rule Tim, I hope you don't mind me borrowing it?
Barry
I, also, added 1 to the climb counters.
I did not take the 1 off the height but it seems sensible and a good idea to me.
The first things that extra weight effects are length of take-off, climb rate and ceiling. Turning circle might increase slightly as well as wing loading increases but, within the scope of our game, climb rate and ceiling are probably the most obvious penalty areas.
I need to do some more research on the 11mm experimented with on some Hanriots -- I need to figure out how much it weighed compared to a dual-mount 0.30; what the ballistics were like; etc.
Remember that the Hanriot carried a single Vickers gun, not a twin. The 11mm Vickers was - as far as I know - only used by balloon busting ace Willy Coppens.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willy_Coppens
His reason for using this weapon was that he specialised in balloon busting. The 11mm Vickers would have two advantages in this - a longer range and a larger round. The larger round would rip the envelope of the balloon quicker, allowing gas and air to mix in explosive proportions and the diameter of the round meant a larger tracer compound and thus increased incendiary ability. The longer range would tend to keep him out of range of some of the balloon's defences. To replicate the 11mm I would recommend increasing the gun range by half a stick against balloons ONLY. If using the game's balloon busting card deck I would recommend that any attack with an 11mm Vickers on a balloon, turn the normal cards but also roll one die. Any score of '6' and the balloon automatically explodes.
Barry
Last edited by 'Warspite'; 02-24-2017 at 01:18. Reason: Added one line
I would suggest when using it against Balloons that you use the A deck - and any special damage (including the jams) causes fire.
I suggest the A deck because if you use a B deck you are slightly disadvantaged as there is no natural 5 which can also cause a fire and suggest any special damage cause a fire as the extra chances from jams will give it the advantage over a standard A deck attack....
And... because it doesn't involve use of dice !
Tony Williams on the Aerodrome http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/sh...ad.php?t=16007
"More successful was the French development of a Vickers gun in their old 11 mm Gras rifle cartridge (11x59R) together with the Desvignes Mark XI incendiary bullet (which was actually a long-burning tracer), the resultant conversion thereby being known as the 11 mm or Gras Vickers. As with the British .45 in, the lighter bullet permitted a much higher muzzle velocity in the region of 600 m/s. The French were the major users although the USA adopted the weapon and ammunition in late 1917 (both being already manufactured there) and produced the weapons by converting some existing Vickers guns chambered for the 7.62x54R, a Russian order which had been cancelled following Russia's withdrawal from the war. The USA developed their own high-velocity loading with a tracer/incendiary bullet weighing 17.5 g. The guns could be fitted in place of any Vickers, but were reportedly not popular as the recoil was significantly heavier, causing more vibration when firing. However, these weapons were still much in demand at the end of the war, despite the development of similar ammunition for rifle-calibre guns, as the bigger projectiles permitted a much larger filling of incendiary and HE material. The USA continued experimenting with the 11 mm guns into the early 1920s, and manufactured over 500,000 rounds of ammunition for them."
Seems they were mounted on balloon buster's Spads alongside a standard Vickers, difference in weight being remarked on as 'nominal', haven't found any reference to its specific weight yet, though I should think the ammo was heavier.
Sapiens qui vigilat... "He is wise who watches"
The 'B' deck has twice as many "Fire" special damages as the 'A' deck, and twice as many "Smoke" - if using the 11mm ammo as incendiary, then the "Smoke" cards become "Fire", and you have a single 'B' deck with 4 Fire cards! (+ more Zeros)
I laugh in the face of danger - then I hide until it goes away!
I'm going to follow your advice and reduce max altitude of the N17 with A gun by 1.
As we're on the subject of up-gunned Entente fighters, I've got the following for the Spad VII.
SPAD VII (150hp) B Gun Climb Counters 3
SPAD VII (180hp) B Gun Climb Counters 2
SPAD VII (185hp) A Gun Climb Counters 3 <-- ?
Does this look OK and is the engine powerful enough not to reduce max altitude?
I think that penalty on planes for an additional macchinegun varied quite a lot from model to model. A two machinegun Nieuport 17 was not so uncommon, even in Italy where machineguns were scarce. Imolesi later an ace, had one when he scored his first victory. Baracchini managed to get one for his Nieuport 24, being an ace. If others kept the standard armament of one was often more for the difficulty of getting another than for the worsening of flight performances as far as I know.
Scarioni had to fight to get a second mg for his Hanriot. When he got one, he scored 9 victories in three weeks - it does not seem that his plane was crippled:
http://79.170.44.100/wikiofglory.inf...php?title=7517
After him, several other Italian aces did the same among which Fuicini:
http://79.170.44.100/wikiofglory.inf...ni%27s_Hanriot
Coppens was convinced by other Belgian pilots not to do the same for fear of loosing agility. In the end he tried but he immediately stopped the experiment to use the 11mm Vickers you quote in his balloon busting missions:
http://79.170.44.100/wikiofglory.inf...hp?title=HD_23
I think that on these planes, a second machineguns was not a handicap. Or at least not so a big one.
It probably was on others. In the game we featured a couple of two-machinegun Sopwith Triplanes (one by Collishaw out of the few that were made so in the factory, and one in a booster pack that operated in the Aegean and was modified in the field). We also featured one or two two-machineguns SPAD VII and a two-machineguns Halberstadt D.III. These were rare modifications, so we can guess that they were quite unsuccesful and did not spread imitation at all. The worst of all being probably the three-machineguns Fokker E.IV for which we provided a card in the Immelmann booster, prone to jammings and failures.
That's great info,
Thanks
You can make it even better at the links above - it's the Wiki of Glory, edit as you want!
Andrea, I don't see the success of aces with two guns on a single gun platform as being opposed to the observation that adding another MG hurt performance. For one, your points are anecdotal, which is fine, but that must be understood nonetheless. Second, I believe aircraft mfrs themselves demonstrated that additional guns hurt performance, materially. I'm sure someone could provide the citations if they cared to. And I would feel pretty confident that an added gun would affect the performance of lighter craft like a Nieu17 to a greater extent than on heavier craft. This is a real issue I believe, and one that should be settled by valid evidence where available.
I was just telling to study case by case, not to make a general rule out of the fact that most of the times, obviously, adding weapons was a failure (as on Triplane, SPAD VII, E.IV, Halberstadt, etc). On the positive facts, I might be quite short - but Scaroni's Hd.1 case (with pilots following his example) is pretty well detailed in reasons, effects and long terms and consequences both his diaries and in studies like the Italian Aces books by Gentilli/Varriale/Iozzi.
Oh yeah, that's a point !Think I'd still go with the A deck against balloons just for the extra points in between but the same idea of any special damage causes a fire could be applied to the B deck when using a Gras Vickers. It'll still jam of course but at least you'll have started a fire !
If you only allow scoring jams that would even it out a bit more... some may prefer that as you are scoring a hit, opportunities to start a fire would then be 12 for A 13 for B.
Will have to try it out sometime is the answer.
A deck
0 - 11 (red jam, green jam)
1 - 7 (left rudder, right rudder)
2 - 6 (both jams, both rudders, fire)
3 - 5 (engine, pilot)
4 - 3 (smoke)
5 - 2 (pilot)
Boom - 1
B Deck
0 - 17 (2 red jams, 2 green jams)
1 - 12 (red jam, green jam, left rudder, right rudder. fire, smoke, pilot)
2 - 9 ( left rudder, right rudder. engine, fire, smoke)
3 - 4 (pilot)
4 - 1
Boom - 1
Last edited by flash; 02-25-2017 at 06:41. Reason: clarification
Sapiens qui vigilat... "He is wise who watches"
There's another issue with a second gun: *Where* it was mounted. Adding weight is one thing; adding weight further out from the center-of-mass....
As to the 11mm: I'm thinking in terms of how it would work against other acft. -- a single big bullet vs. two smaller ones.
Against a WW1 aircraft I would consider there would be very little difference. With wood and canvas aircraft of that period any bullet in the 7 to 8mm or .30/303 inch range would punch straight through the structure. There was no pilot armour and no self-sealing fuel tanks - matters where the .50 cal, in WW2, made a difference. The .50 cal could punch through the thinner pilot seat armours while the wider calibre holes would push self-sealing tanks to their limits, especially if two .50s struck side-by-side. Of course with the WW2 introduction of 20mm cannon shells, self-sealing tanks then made very little difference. The shell burst created a hole beyond the capacity of the compound to self-seal and the shell flash was also likely to instantly set fire to the leaking fuel.
An RE8 once made a glider landing without fuel many miles from the front. Examination of it revealed the rear-gunner had been killed by the same bullet which had punched through him and then mortally wounded the pilot. The aircraft flew-on in perfect trim until it ran out of fuel. No other bullets had struck the aeroplane. Nearly every WW1 bullet represented a massive over-kill due to its punch-through ability. The only issue would be what was hit, as it punched through. A human body or a mechanical part might suffer more damage from an 11mm but the difference would be fairly small. On the other hand the slower rate-of-fire of a heavy MG, on an aircraft where the interrupter or synchroniser is ALSO slowing down the rate-of-fire, means the heavy MG would put fewer but heavier bullets in the target area. Is that an advantage in WW1? Probably not!
In WW2 the RAF (at the time of the Battle of Britain) was criticised for sticking with the .303 Browning instead of going to heavier calibres or cannons. I have always contended that the 8 x .303 of the Spitfire or Hurricane was the right armament at that time as many RAF pilots were inexperienced and the hosing effect of eight 'lights' compensated for poor aim. Sure the holes were smaller, but there were many more of them and the Germans faced a long flight back across the English Channel if just one .303 bullet cut a fuel pipe, cooling pipe or punctured a radiator. None of these were self-sealing.
Besides, the number of German aircraft coming back damaged or with wounded crew was bad for morale. A missing aircraft might be easier to cope with than a shot-up or blood smeared one. "Out of sight is out of mind".
The short argument is: an 11mm bullet or a 7.92/.303 will still kill you if you are hit in the back of the head.
The only time an 11mm might be better is if the pilot was wearing a steel helmet - and these were not worn in WW1.
Last edited by 'Warspite'; 02-25-2017 at 02:58. Reason: grammar error
With the Halberstadt D.III there was no engine upgrade (as far as I am aware) to compensate for the extra weight of the extra gun.
I believe its possible with the Spad VII and Sopwith Tripe there may be examples where the engine was more powerful and this may have compensated for the weight of the extra gun? Hence the following:
SPAD VII (150hp) B Gun Climb Counters 3
SPAD VII (180hp) B Gun Climb Counters 2
SPAD VII (185hp) A Gun Climb Counters 3 <-- ?
Sopwith Triplane (9b engine 110hp) B Gun Climb Counters 3
Sopwith Triplane (9bf engine 130hp) A Gun Climb Counters 3 <--?
I'm currently working on the assumption that the reason the up-engined Sopwith Tripe was not continued was that it was replaced by the Camel and similarly the reason the up-engined Spad VII was not continued was it was replaced by the Spad XIII. In short I'm thinking maybe the 2 gunned up-engined Sopwith Tripe and Spad VII were not failures - it was more that by the time the better engines were available better planes were also available.
But I could well be wrong on this - which is the reason I'm posting.
[Added]
I am probably on very shaky grounds with the tripe and the following may be more correct:
Sopwith Triplane (9b engine 130hp) B Gun Climb Counters 3
Sopwith Triplane (9b engine 130hp) A Gun Climb Counters 4 <--?
Last edited by Nicola Zee; 02-26-2017 at 00:59.
I did not know mods were made to the planes guns for play balance. I don't like that. Did they do that in plane performance as well? I want to balance my scenarios myself. Is there a correction file on this?
No armament has been modified for game balance at all. On the contrary, every plane has been depicted with an armament that was actually documented during its operative, wartime service. If you see Collishaw's Black Maria Sopwith Triplane with two machineguns instead than the standard one, it is because it is one of the Teiplanes documented as being delivered by the factory with twin weapons. If you see the Lufbedy/Thiennault Nieuport 17 or Nungesser's one with both a Vickers on the nose and a Lewis on the upper eing, it is because in at least a part of their operative services they were such armed and this is documented by photos. And so on.
An important clarification very well and clearly stated.
The issue I have is how badly the performance of the 2 guns should effect the Sopwith Tripe.
Some sites are clear and emphatic
http://www.fs2000.org/2015/09/13/fsx...e-black-maria/
"The last, N533 had two machine guns, causing a drastic drop in performance..."
In that case (at a minimum) the climb counters should be increased by at least 1.
Other sites imply the effect was not that great.
I have a collection of specific rules for some planes. For the A-firing Sopwith Triplane there is this one:
A total of 10 Sopwith Triplanes have been built with two machineguns instead than one. Other few machines had a second weapon added at the front. This provided firepower at the expense of performance, because of the additional weight. If this rule is in use, A firing Sopwith Triplanes use a D deck instead than a U one and increase their Climb rate by 1.
Thanks for posting. I was already toying with using the D deck myself for the 2 guns. So, I'm well on board with this. It's also great to get the expert opinion.
So now that just leaves the Spad VII with 2 guns? I think the availability of the bigger engine, the robust air frame, the stream-lined design and so on justifies a more generous performance and very much keeping its B movement deck.
SPAD VII (150hp) B Gun Climb Counters 3
SPAD VII (180hp) B Gun Climb Counters 2
SPAD VII (185hp) A Gun Climb Counters 3 <-- ?
[Edited several times for clarity]
[Added link]
According to this link there were eventually Spad VII planes with 200hp engines
http://www.aviation-history.com/spad/s7.htm
The aircraft was produced by eight different manufactures with the first order for the French for 268 aircraft with deliveries beginning on September 2, 1916. The early models were powered with the 150 hp Hispano-Suiza 8A engine which were later upgraded to 180 hp and 200 hp Hispano engines as they became available.
In theory, a 200hp engine should help to cope with the weight very well but (of course) the question becomes which engine was fitted with the actual spad vii's with the 2 guns.
Last edited by Nicola Zee; 02-26-2017 at 08:51.
Interesting comment on the link, with NO corroborating evidence. Raymond Collishaw's bio provides a different picture. He flew flight lead with his other, single-gunned planes. His recollection was that there was a difference above 10,000 ft, but he was more than happy to trade that loss of performance for the extra firepower. Given that this was a loss of power in the top 20% of the flight envelope, it was a very small trade. So, if you wanted to accurately reflect that, then increase the climb rate only above 10,000 ft.
PS: Note that Collishaw flew flight lead with his flight, so that means the same maneuver deck, at least below 10,000 ft. IMHO
Last edited by OldGuy59; 02-26-2017 at 12:14.
Mike
"Flying is learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss" Douglas Adams
"Wings of Glory won't skin your elbows and knees while practicing." OldGuy59
This all seems logical.
Can I throw something into the discussion on a similar "armchair general" topic? Not exactly the same, but when talking about the performance of aircraft 100 years after the fact, using anecdotal information, we are all just speculating. Unless someone has reasonable head-to-head comparisons from the time period, I would hesitate to start throwing rules around.
As an example. Lately, someone posted a story about a replica Sopwith Camel being put through its paces. The conclusion from the pilots of that replica was that there was no significant right-hand torque from the engine, and that there was no difference in left or right turns. Stunned shock?! What? All the pilots that flew it and wrote biographies, and all the novice pilots that died trying to fly a Camel were wrong? And, IIRC, they didn't mount the replica engine the same way, using a radial not a rotary engine. The replica builders didn't think that made any substantial difference in the performance.
Well, without a head-to-head comparison, even the replica builders are guessing, or are discounting every pilot that flew the originals in WWI. Personally, I believe the original pilots, and discount the replica builders.
No head-to-head comparison, no valid comparison. IMHO.
PS: I am going through a few books, and have come across anecdotes of Sopwith Triplanes having a ceiling of 20,000 ft?! Also, in that reference that the 110hp Clerget engine allowed a speed of "nearly 100 mile an hour at 15,000 ft" and performed exceptionally well at height.
Within that reference, the twin-gunned Triplane is mentioned, with Collishaw flying it from the latter part of July to the beginning of August (perhaps two weeks). Up to that point, the information was that the Triplane was regularly on patrol around 16,000 ft. It is the source reference of my first reference about the up-gunned Triplane.
Source: The Brave Young Wings, Ronald Dodds, Pgs 60-67
Also, this:
Source: Osprey Publishing - Sopwith Triplane Aces of World War1, No. 62
Note in the Osprey reference: "...although there was a definite loss of performance about 10,000 ft, it was relatively slight..." Does that sound like it needs to be dropped to a U maneuver deck and reduced climb rate over its entire flight envelope? It may not need more than the climb rate reduction above 10,000 ft, if anything at all.
Last edited by OldGuy59; 02-26-2017 at 13:20.
Mike
"Flying is learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss" Douglas Adams
"Wings of Glory won't skin your elbows and knees while practicing." OldGuy59
Wrong in every single particular. The acft. in question are *NOT* radial-powered; they have rotaries, identical in every respect to the units used in period. The data from the test flights was acquired with the most-modern data-collection devices which could be fitted to a WW1-spec acft.
The data is accurate; the eyewitness testimony, is, as usual, wrong.
Chris,
Wrong in every single particular?
I will admit that I did not recall the engine mounting accurately, and appreciate that correction. Reading David's link was a refresher, but I recall that it was right hand turns for Camels being easier than lefts, and the maneuver deck for our planes corroborates that. So, is the article wrong about the "comical embellishment" of original pilots?
From that same linked article:
"When a Camel pilot wanted to invert the airplane quickly, he would probably use a snap roll, not an aileron roll. It may in fact be true that the Camel snaps faster to the left than to the right; this is a maneuver that Javier did not test."
And then, they go on to say something like this:
"It was said that a Camel could evade an attacker by maintaining a tight right turn until the opponent grew bored and went away or both airplanes reached the ground. That makes some sense: Dogfights were typically fought while descending, and in a right turn, the gyroscopic couple pulls downward; the controls don’t have to fight against it."
Is this not what the original pilots did? So, is that a "comical embellishment"? The author of the article provides some measure of proof that it wasn't a "comical embellishment", and that their own data provides the evidence.
So, they didn't fully test the plane, did they? And I can't find the article of the follow-on head-to-head match-up of a dogfight between the Fokker Dr.1 and the Camel as a comparison of performance. I'd be very interested to see how that turned out.
Lastly, I will concur that eye witness accounts of anything have been proven to be the most unreliable evidence in a lot of cases. However, I will not concur that this includes operators, individuals with hands-on, active participation in events, whereas witnesses are passive observers. Not that operators have been 100% correct in all regards. Like pilots not clearly remembering the paint color on their aircraft on a given day. But how the plane flew? That would be like saying you couldn't remember how to ride a bike, because you couldn't remember the particular shade of blue it bore.
Last edited by OldGuy59; 02-26-2017 at 16:55.
Mike
"Flying is learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss" Douglas Adams
"Wings of Glory won't skin your elbows and knees while practicing." OldGuy59
I must admit that I am a bit perturbed by this article. Half way through the lefts and rights seem to reverse. Does this mean that the 160 Gnome revolves the other way compared with normal Camel engines? Or does the author just get confused?
Secondly… and crucially… the effect on the Camel's flying characteristics is supposed to be caused by the concentration of all the weight in one key point in the aeroplane. So when these tests were carried out were the two guns in place? And was the 800 rounds of .303 ammunition also in place?
And… was it also tested with the fuel tank behind the pilot almost empty? One risk area with the Camel was landing (i.e. low on fuel) with some pilot preferring to switch off the engines and come in 'dead stick' rather than land a Camel under full power. I am thinking that with the weight of the fuel missing behind the pilot the gyroscopic action might be worse.
Finally - if all the stories of Camel engines are hokum… why does nearly every aircraft carrier have its bridge, stack and island to the right? The Royal Navy chose the right because its pilots said they preferred to abort their landings to the left precisely because it was the 'safer' way to turn a Camel. No pilot in his right mind would abort to the right.
So 100 years of aircraft carrier design influenced by the Camel is wrong? (picture me puzzled)
Barry
Last edited by 'Warspite'; 02-26-2017 at 17:47. Reason: spelling errors
Barry,
Reading the article David linked, I went looking for anything else, especially the Fokker vs Camel match-up, or even the Fokker Dr.1 assessment. I found this: www.flyingmag.com - A Nice Little Book
Same author, a year earlier, and the opposite comments about the turn direction. So, an author error the editor missed in proofing? My bet. However, the author mentions a tail-heavy characteristic for the Camel? And when I read this earlier article, I detect a bias between the two articles about the turning capability of the Camel. Perhaps just my preconceived notions fighting the suggestion of original pilot bias?
Others can read the two articles and form their own opinions. I think there is a slant to the two articles, and even the evidence presented by the author didn't shake his opinion about the "lack of torque effect" on the Camel. Perhaps there was a head-to-head match-up, and the author couldn't continue to substantiate his arguments with the new evidence?
I can't comment on aircraft carrier construction related to planes. I will let better informed Forum members jump on that.
Mike
"Flying is learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss" Douglas Adams
"Wings of Glory won't skin your elbows and knees while practicing." OldGuy59
G'day Chaps & Chris in particular.
Chris I know you have been down the Camel path before & have firm views on the subject.
However you just cannon discount the plethora of comments & stories from a multitude of WW1 Pilots stating the bias of the Camels Right Hand turn. The torque from the engine caused the Aircraft to turn quicker with the direction of rotation & slower against the rotation. Also the Camel would tend to drop its nose in one direction & rise in the opposite.
I do not know which Replica builders you are quoting? Were they using an original Camel engine?
Modern replica's may be slightly different to the originals & maybe rigged differently?
Remember too that the characteristics could change with different engines.
139 hp Clerget, 140 hp Clerget, 110 Le Rhone & 150 hp Bentley plus the Camels overall length varied with the engine fitted from 18ft 6ins to 19 ft. The weight also varied. (Details from Osprey's Camel Vs Fokker Dr.I)
My money is on the original pilots opinion & the large number of training fatalities caused by its idiosyncrasies!
Last edited by gully_raker; 02-26-2017 at 19:37. Reason: added information
Good point Tim
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