WW1 aircraft trivia

[m10bob]

IRL climb and speed are very important.
The reason climb rate is (to pilots) the most important is that all planes lose altitude anytime they make a turn. To turn a plane, without losing altitude, a pilot generally will push the throttle forward to feed more fuel, and pull ever so slightly back on the stick, (to keep the plane in a climbing mode, while turning.
The more maneuverable planes will generally have an abulity to turn longer before they lose their altitude and or speed sufficient to stall out.
This is why in WW1 a Fokker Dr1 triplane which only flew at 103 mph (on a good day) was a match for a SPAD 13 with a speed of 137, (truly one of the fastest planes of that war).
BTW, some folks don't know that in WW1 some of the German planes had a little wing between the landing wheels, which of themselves were sufficient to carry the weight of the pilot! The Fokker D 7 comes to mind, as does the D 8..
That little wing was considered a "secret weapon" as important as the later F 86's "floating tailplane"..


Since the planes of that day did not have carburetors as such, nor adjustable throttles, the planes speed on landing was altered by constantly flipping on and off the magneto switches..
During violent combat maneuvering, a plane might turn upside down or turn into a high "g", temporarily stopping the gravity feed of the fuel to the engine.
To help keep the fuel flowing, castor oil was burnt with the fuel to keep the spark and flow going.
The fumes of the burning castor oil tended to have a laxative effect on the pilot, and many of the planes of that war actually had the bottom of the plane removed so the pilot might "relieve" himself, (hopefully not on his own people). I have never seen this replicated on any scale model airplane, nor Hollywood movie. Wonder why?[:D]

When the Bristol "Brisfit" first went into combat, it performed horribly with nearly an entire squadron being shot down while flying along in a tight formation.
The next day, (so it goes), a Brisfit formation was again being attacked, but the pilots broke formation and began flying them like they would single-engined fighters!
Thus was discovered the fact the Brisfit was an excellent dogfighter, and a real terror in the skies.

[SMK-at-work]

The "Blipping" of throttles and castor oil only applied to rotaries - inline and "V" engines were carburetted just fine.

One of the most impressive performing planes of hte whole war was the Seimens Schukert D IV - only a hundred or so were completed by the end of hte war, but it could climb unbelievably - to 6000m (~19,600 feet)  in 14 1/4 minutes - for comparison a Spitfire 1 would get to 23000 feet in 14 minutes - above 4000 feet it was faster than the Fokker D-VII, and was considered by its pilots hte best a/c of the war - it's ShIII radial rotated in one directoin at 1800 rpm....but the rankshaft was geared 2:1 so the prop only rotated at 900 RPM - allowing a massive and very efficient 4-bladed propeller to be fitted.  It's ceiling of over 8000m was 1200m higher than hte D VII.

But then Fokkers own end-of-war design the parasol monoplane D VIII was limited to a 110hp rotary and did some fairly amazing stuff too......all in all it's a good thing for many allied pilots the war ended before either of these machines could ge the bugs properly ironed out!