Ramblings Over the Front

Paul F. Baer in front of his SPAD S.VII

As members of the forum may know, I have some great interest in the Escadraille Americaine/Lafayette Escadrille/103rd Aero. I have a few planes to represent the various stages of this squadron, ranging from two Nieuport N.11 repaints, to the Thaw/Lufbery Nieuport N.17, to four SPAD S.VIIs for the 103rd Aero. Also, one of the interesting American pilots of the war, and one who was the American Ace of Aces ...

I recently received a few of the Gray PA12 planes from Shapeways to start working on. Alas, for four orders in a row Shapeways has jacked something up, in this case sending a second Halberstadt D.V instead of the Albatros C.I I ordered. At least their service has been good when handling these errors, but they could charge less per plane if they didn't have such errors adding into their costs!

The rest of the order consists of a Nieuport N.17 (will be painted Russian), a Nieuport N.23 ...

Originally Posted by predhead

Looking through various aircraft ratings and seeing that perhaps the Ponnier's climb rate (according to the good work the unofficial stats committee does for the rest of us) is on the low side. Comparing rates of climb using the Wings of Linen site, and averaging when applicable if the is a variation of climb time. The numbers in parenthesis are the game climb rates):

Nieuport N.11 - 3000 meters in 17.33 minutes - 568 feet per minute (4)
Nieuport N.16 - 3000 meters in 10.17

...

Guntruck's Turkish Halberstadt D.V

Previously I have mentioned some of my upcoming projects, like the Ponnier M.1, but now I have placed a Shapeways order that have the following planes winging their way to my door, in Gray PA12:
Albatros C.I - XD Deck
Halberstadt D.V - Q Deck (Turkish)
Morane Saulnier Type AI - N Deck (David Putnam MS156)
Nieuport 17 (Vickers) - I Deck (Russian)
Nieuport 23 - I Deck (Belgian) ...

It is one of my favorite mid-war decks. While the speed is average, the broad sideslips give this deck an advantage over the V Deck of the Albatros D.I/D.II and the J Deck of the Albatros D.III and Pfalz D.III.



Selecting a plane to use with my one extra I Deck is much easier than my N Deck conundrum. Options are the Fokker D.V, the Morane-Saulnier Type V, Nieuport 17, Nieuport 17bis, Nieuport 21, Nieuport 23, and the Airco DH-5.
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