Interesting find: Just how big WERE WWI airplanes?

[Diamondback]

An old friend just sent me this pic, and I thought it was an interesting visual on aircraft sizes.


That's a SPAD XIII in front of a 1950s F-106 Delta Dart like my grandfather wrenched and my college mentor flew--the Dart's tail fin alone is only a foot shorter than the entire SPAD airframe! When we consider that in tandem with the only about 40 years between the two birds, the stature of typical WWI pilots (remember, as former horse cavalry most would have been in the low 5'/100lb size/weight class) and that every pound of weight counted... amazing the evolution in engines too, from frequently being unable to lift a mere second gun or even an added PARACHUTE to the Six having the power if properly flown to toss a payload suborbital into space. This had to be done on the ground because a SPAD's V-max is BELOW the speed where a Six falls out of the sky...

Gives you a whole new appreciation for those guys a hundred years ago... makes ya wonder how they WALKED with the huevos they were dragging around.

[Jager]

An interesting contrast. The advance of airplanes was, and still is, incredible.
Karl

[flash]

Good comparison - 20ft 8in v 70ft 8in - remarkable advances in technology over that time period, it seems war does that, imagine a Wright Flyer in front of the SPAD !

[Spad VII]

Nice pict !
It should be noted that French aircraft are always smaller than American aircraft, even modern ones, because they cover less territory. In the case of an "Opex" mission, they are given additional tanks and in-flight refuelling. Here is a moving moment 100 years after the end of the 1st World War a Dassault Rafale and an authentic Spad XIII flying side by side in the skies over France in 2018 :

[Diamondback]

Note that the SPAD is running redlined while the Rafale is struggling to maintain enough airflow to stay up. You can see something similar in a 1950s USAF/Boeing publicity photo with B-17, B-29, B-47 and B-52 all stacked up and the Fort's in a shallow dive while the two jets are having to climb, and they only had a very limited moment to get the pic snapped.

Also of interest to note, on that Six almost the entire back third is engine, the middle third is weapons bay including the pneumatics and air reservoir to open the doors and deploy the launchers (and only enough air reserves to cycle the bay three times for five payload items! launch first pair of missiles, launch second, launch Genie nuke, then turn for home and PRAY that SAGE ground control doesn't take over your plane by remote and kamikaze you into another Bear...) and almost the entire front third aside from some modest stowage for a personal duffel bag is cockpit and electronics.

[milcoll73]

well, they called them kites for a reason.

[Dawn Patrol]

Spad XVI two-seater


Dang, sorry, I forget and I don’t have my notes on the day’s shots with me.


Halberstadt Cl.IV


Sopwith Camel


Nieuport 28

All from the Smithsonian National Aerospace Museum, Udvar-Hazy Center (Virginia). Though these aren’t conveniently posed next to larger modern aircraft (and I wasn’t composing the shots that way, in any case), one gets from the people and surroundings that they really aren’t all that big (the FW-190 right across from the P47 Thunderbolt gives you a better dynamic on relative aircraft size).

[Diamondback]

Another, also with a Six:

[Windy Jack]

Great initial picture. Thanks for sharing, Diamondback.

[Spad VII]

Dang, sorry, I forget and I don’t have my notes on the day’s shots

All from the Smithsonian National Aerospace

Beautiful Caudron G.4 thanks for the picts !