The figures are only for Sopwith Camels with the Clerget 9B. Camels flew with 150 ho Bentley BR1s in the Royal Navel air service. They also used 140 hp Clerget 9BF engines and 160 hp Gnome Monosoupape 9N. A Bentley or Gnome engined Camel would be a different kettle of fish.
You forgot mention that the propellar was bolted on the engine, and the whole engine rotated. That caused gyroscope effect. The richoffen mentioned "devil" was about that. The fenomen made some turns and manovers hard to do, but also in right hand You could use it, and the Fokker would turn nearly in the spot. Same effect was the cause of Camels bad reputation, as many new Camel pilots died from it.
"60 'Transaereo' a massive aircraft schemed to carry 60 people over a distance of 850km (528 miles). A patent for a six-wing flying boat had been lodged by Gianni Caproni on 6 February 1919. Design and construction of what, at the time, was without doubt the largest aircraft ever produced began the same year"
Baron von Richthofen was a smart guy, he knew if he painted his plane red it would go faster that way he could make up for the triplane being a little slower.
The problem with painting it bright red, was that it attracted unwanted attention from Highway Patrol... he wracked up a lot of tickets because of that paint job.
@@wolfshanze5980 I was doing 80 mph a RED Ferrari Flew by me at 120 . I saw hit Coming so Thumbs up and he Turned around and Waved..Two hours later no pull over for him.😁😁😁😁
Werner Voss is in my head the DR.1 guy. His even had a mustache :D Since I started learning more about the period my mental image of Richthofen changed to him in a red Albatross. It doesn't "help" that his book ends before he got his Fokker, tho I think he did a test flight in it. (as far as I remember)
It's worth noting: Germans knew the Sopwith F1 "Camel" Clerget engine was better and a direct bolt in replacement of the DR 1 Oberusel. They would grab every engine from captured/crashed Sopwiths and swap out for the added horsepower and reliability. In this era, 20 extra horsepower was huge.
@fhuber7507 Check out Jane's fighting aircraft of world war one. Often they would salvage gnome' engines from downed French aircraft, and put them in dr1s.
Also, it truly seems like it was written by the narrator. The tone varies with the material and moments of excitement are perfectly appropriate. Subscribed :)
You can thank the Wright brothers for the thin wings. They did extensive wind tunnel research, but their wind tunnel was quite small, so the wings being tested were also quite small, only a few inches. At that size, a thin wing IS better. Reynolds numbers were not a thing yet, so they didn't realize the effect didn't scale up. I'd wager the university where the thick foil was invented had a full size tunnel.
Additional factor that might have influenced the Wrights, they used wing warping instead of ailerons, which I would imagine favored a thin flexible wing.
@@edwinball985I was just thinking that as well. I’d guess it would be difficult to warp the wings to turn with a much thicker wing, though I’d guess that was likely just a benefit of the thin wing that they developed, based on their wind tunnel testing.
“During WWI, aircraft design was happening so rapidly that it was outpacing aircraft understanding.” A great line, that basically summarizes the video. Thanks again for your deep insights Greg, always a pleasure.
I always thought that triplanes were better because they allowed a more compact design with a short span, better roll rate, and even sturdier because of the shorter wings. But I also knew the Dr.1 has build issues and was slower, so the things I knew, I also knew I didn't really know, and I didn't know what I didn't know. Now I do know what I didn't know. Thanks.
The Sopwith Triplane had ailerons on each wing, a total of six. The Fokker had them on the top wing only; just two. That must have made a difference to roll initiation.
As an engineer (BSME and MSE), my comment is that you are pretty darn good at engineering understanding and interpretation as well as interesting videos. Nice videos and channel.
He missed the part were Triplanes OP for the times because speed didn't matter but packaging,clime and manvuvering did... Much like in V tails and 4 props. Which I guess comes from a lack of understanding how in engeering you need to solve for your limitations... Which I'm sure if they could have built F-22s they would have... But they couldn't and likely wouldn't as what radar?
Tom Sopwith stated that one reason for his triplane was to improve visibility for the pilot as three narrow wings blocked out less of the sky. Strangely the Fokker dr1 has very wide wings and visibility is awful as attested by the late Don Eliss who crashed his friends Dr1 right in front of me as he came in to land ; a broken prop and damaged wing tip was the result. He said (basically!) One has no idea where the ground is, the wings block your view forward and below. Fun fact :- Tom Sopwith pretty much saved England in both world wars ! he had aircraft and designs ready for WW1 as he could see what was coming ;and after the Government bankrupted him postwar, he carried on with a new company name :- Hawker (named after Harry Hawker Tom`s dead test pilot friend) so Sopwith then got Hurricanes ready (designed by Sydney Camm) before WW2 broke out! (thanks mate!) Then there's the Harrier ! they should all be Sopwiths !!
The DR1 gets grounded soon after the Red Baron's death. The DR1 had a nasty habit of sheading it's lower wing when stressed. This usually resulted in the pilots death.
A French pilot had escaped from Dunkirk and found himself at a DAR fundraiser one month later. It was his turn to speak, with the hopes of selling lots of war bonds. He started: "Madams and mademoiselles, the battle, she was que terrible. I shot down two German bombers, but then these three Fokkers came shooting at me..." At the enunciation of the word "Fokker", especially given his French accent, the DAR members gasped loudly, crystalware was dropped to the floor, and Mrs Belvedere's chair broke. It was chaos. It was pandemonium. A volunteer quickly jumped to the microphone and announced "ladies, ladies.... 'Fokker' is a type of German aircraft", to their great relief. The French pilot resumed his story: "... anyway these three Fokkers were in Messerschmitts"
In a book called "Iron Men with Wooden Wings", it details the acceptance of the DR1 (among many other things in that amazing book). Richthofen initially rejected the DR1, saying it was "slow." His chief rival (whose name I cannot remember for the life of me) tested it after that and said, "She's slow." The Fokker reps were crushed, then he grinned and said, "She's slow, but I like the way she dances. I'll take a squadron." His squadron was so successful that Richthofen ordered the plane as well.
Thanks for mentioning that book; it ROCKS! Came out the same year as the movie "The Blue Max" and really gave you a feel for what early air-combat was like.
Another advantage of the Dr1 was the flat turn ability. This was a skidding turn which basically allowed the airplane to appear to fly nearly sideways for a moment. Since the guns were facing forward, the severe skid ability allowed the guns to be swung to a different direction, left or right, other than the direction of travel. Werner Voss was very adept at this maneuver and surprised his adversaries by suddenly bringing his guns to bear without banking the aircraft. This was noted by his seven adversaries in his last dog fight and probably lost to history by those who didn't survive their encounters.
Agreed. I had the privilege of flying a Dr1 early on in my flying career. I remember how much you could slip and skid the aircraft. I thought to myself back then that “Wow, you can point the guns in a wide circular field without changing direction of the aircraft.” And how much of an advantage that must have been. The other thing I recall was even though the visibility forward was limited, the view behind you was unobstructed which must have made it harder for an adversary to sneak up on you. Just my 2 cents from an old pilot.
The manoeuvre is called Deflection Shooting. What was not mentioned was the Fokker Tri-planes instability, due to said short wings and short fuselage, you had to be a skilled pilot to fly it.
@@brianholden2724 This is not that. In this manoeuvre a Dr.1 pilot would fly alongside their target then kick the rudder hard so that they ware facing their target for a moment and open fire with their forward firing guns. Deflection shooting came into it -as with all dog fighting tactics- but this was a manoeuvre I've only heard about being used with the Dr.1.
@@chrishartley4553 An aircraft has only three rotations of axis Pitch, Roll & Yaw. The "maneuver" which is being called a skid is Yaw. Yaw is a maneuver that was employed before the advent of dog fighting. All aircraft land with a nose up approach because of the pilots position the nose of the aircraft would obstruct their view, to overcome this the pilot would yaw the plane to give himself a view of the airfield out the side of the plane, this is also used to land in cross winds. the attacking pilot would not fly directly behind but to either the left or right of his opponent and Yaw not to point his guns AT the plane but in front of it, called leading the target. He was shooting at the point where the plane was going to be in its flight path at the same time the bullets did, hence the name defection shooting, because they were not aiming directly at the aircraft. The Fokker was particularly good at this because of it's short fuselage enabling it to yaw at a more acute angle.
I knew a guy who had time on a replica DR 1 with an O320, some on extended x country. He said it was a lot like a helicopter in cruise, neutrally stable to mildly unstable, requiring full time attention, and quite tiring. He said he could yaw it and it would just stay where it was pointed and could do crazy tight flat skidding turns, sort of like a dirt track car. That was without the rotary gyro effects adding to the fun.
How different is that from other planes of the era? I’d imagine that designing for static stability was difficult at best with their rudimentary knowledge and crude early wind tunnels.
@@Justanotherconsumer Static stability is simply weathervaning effect and that part was understood at the time. I've read that the Camel was similar, but the DR1 being more extreme because it was so short coupled and had no fixed vertical stabilizer. Its yaw stability would only come from the aerodynamic center of the fuselage side area being aft of the C of G. Not much stabilizing moment. I think these airplane were the way they were on purpose for point-and-shoot purposes.
As a kid, I always thought the DR1 was some sort of killer machine. Never understood why it wasn’t copied. (Before I found out about the Sopwith Triplane). Later, I assumed its greatness was due to roll rate, or something along those lines. After not having thought about this plane much for decades, it will be good to learn the truth.
If Rise of Flight's representation of the Dr.I is anything to go by, "pure" roll rate is quite atrocious in this plane... although, IIRC, if you're used to WW2-era sims, most of the ones in RoF will feel super sluggish in the roll, anyway. The ailerons seem to hardly have any effect at all. One trait of the simulated Dr.I that initially confused the hell out of me and then developed into my favorite trait the plane has to offer, is how insanely well it responds to rudder inputs. You don't initiate a flat turn by rolling the plane over using the ailerons (those hardly seem to do anything when employed on their own), but you give it a good kick of rudder and if you get it right, she will really turn on a dime. And I think RoF (and probably IL-2 "Flying Circus" more recently, but I don't own that module) really got it right here - having flown the Dr.I quite extensively back in the day, the incredible story of Werner Voss' last dogfight really started to make complete sense.
Internally braced wing. No flying wires. No flying wire drag. The prototype DR1 didn't have the interplane struts. They were put in because the German air force demanded them. The airplane flew just fine without them.
One factor not mentioned was that the Germans were also often fighting defensively and over their lines, it's low top speed was less of a disadvantage there as it was seldom chasing.
Quite frankly the advancements made with winged flight from 1903 to 1918 is astonishing. The ability to synchronize the engine with the machine gun always amazed me. This advancement in itself revolutionized air combat.
Such a lack of WW1 content out there with planes since obviously ww2 just casts a big shadow over it. I am excited for more of this as well as interwar stuff. There is just nothing so cool than the 20s especially when talking about the mail and transportation sectors of aviation at that era. The designs were all over the place in every country.
The DR1 was a master’s fighter mainly suited to pilots who could capitalize on its eerie flat turning capability and sudden climb capabilities. Read up on Werner Voss, maybe the greatest DR1 pilot (imo, the dogfight that killed Voss very likely would have killed Richthofen as well). Both of them were able to fly to the triplane’s strengths and brilliant enough to overcome the speed deficit.
I am not going to speculate on who was the better fighter pilot, both were superb! And yes I agree the air battle that Voss lost would have done in the Baron as well! Against that many opponents, they only had to be lucky once! And they were quite good opponents! His only real chance was to have attempted to escape, but he apparently forgo several opportunities in order to continue the fight! Combat fatigue or just overconfidence?
@@heneagedundas Agreed! Perhaps why he did not try. I am just repeating what the attacking pilots stated in the after action reports. I have read several differing accounts of the battle over the years. Some quite confusing, none of them the same! Not surprising, a lot happened very quickly under a lot of stress!
There were 2 short wires for the top wing center and 2 for the wheels. Also the early DR 1s didn't have the outer struts until they started shedding the top wing.
Mr. Greg must not sleep with all this awesome content he puts out. It’s not like it’s something simple, I could get an engineering degree with how detailed the videos are. The research is beyond adequate, it’s AMAZING!!! Thank you Greg for all your dedicated work.
The discrepancy in Camel pilot reports vs Dr. 1 pilot reports, for turn performance, could even be as simple as one plane having a newer engine than the other; since these were the days when time between overhauls was measured in dozens of hour, it could easily be that a Camel which had been flying all week with the same engine would have a disadvantage against a Dr.1 with a freshly-overhauled engine, and same thing the other way around, thus leading to a possible discrepancy.
@@Telamon8 Camel also had three different engines, depending on sub type. The Germans lacked castor oil for the rotary engines, they had more reliability issues and shot-down Allied planes often had their engines taken for German use.
One thing that strikes with military operations is the amount of data collected due to large sample sizes. That and some of the nuanced observations that don't have the sample sizes or are not even obvious are quite interesting.
WW1 is by far my favorite era of military aviation. To have Greg provide a technical analysis of what made a plane like the Dr.1 tick is absolutely amazing. Thank you sir, your videos are a joy for those of us who enjoy learning about the quantifiable performance characteristics and engineering behind these magnificent machines.
@@TheSaturnVthe power to weight is pretty lousy. A dog isn’t even a single horsepower, and there’s almost nothing helping the dog transfer power to the craft.
1) The death of Baron Manfred von Richthofen actually had nothing to do with the Fokker Dr. 1. 2) The Baron was Prussian aristocracy. 3) Oswald Boelcke was the first professional fighter pilot. He was the first one to develop dogfighting rules. Literally he was the father of dogfighting! 4) Captain Oswald Boelcke taught Baron Manfred von Richthofen. 5) The cause of Baron Manfred von Richthofen's death goes back to when he flew an Albatros D.V. During a dogfight he was severely wounded in his head. He was never the same. His flying skills, decision making, personality and more. 6) After each dogfight he was laid up a long time in terrible pain. 7) With the new person he became everyone was very concerned about him. His family begged and pleaded for him to be released from the military due to all of his problems since being shot in the head. 8) Despite his health, Baron Manfred von Richthofen refused to stop and no one forced the issue for his sake. 9) When he was shot flying the Dr 1 he was violating the rules he had for everyone including himself. He flew over the oppositions trenches. He was hit with one round that killed him. He still managed to land the plane albeit a was a bit rough. The landing carriage would need to have been repaired. 10) Souvenir hunters decimated the plane. There was very little left. Please forgive me any typos, grammatical/spelling errors or errors other errors as I am only human and not an A.I. All information was cited in good faith. Forgive me but I am working on memory.
I went to Reinbeck NY for an airshow with Dr1, d7, sopwith camel and more as a kid, 50+ years ago. Thanks for bringing back those memories, and presenting your data so well.
@@philiphumphrey1548 The F-104's wing isn't that thin, remember that thickness is considered relative to the chord and the Starfighter's wings are tiny. The unique part is that the leading edges are sharpened instead of being rounded. As an example, the F-104 has a consistent thickness-to-chord ratio of 3.5%, the F-4's thickness ratio decreases from 6.4% at the root to just 3% at the tip.
@@smittywjmj The chord of the F-104 is very long, though. It's wings actually are quite thin relative to their chord. The sharp leading and trailing edges and thin wing improve supersonic drag dramatically at the expensive of massively increased subsonic induced drag.
@@J7Handle It's thin, just not incredibly so. It's a consistent 3.5% ratio across the span, which is thicker than many tapered wings at the tips. The F-105 has a 3.7% tip, the F-4 is just 3% at the tip. Of course, neither of these planes have wingtip hardpoints like the F-104. The F-5 has a thicker 4.8% ratio for a more direct comparison, and which is still fairly thin. Basically I'm only saying that the phrase "razor thin" is hyperbolic and perhaps misunderstanding the sharpened leading edge.
The DR-1 doesn't have wire bracing. All of the other planes before the DR-1 had a bunch of wires crisscrossing between struts and wings. The DR-1 doesn't . The wings are short wingspan, and if you look inside the wing there are TWO different spruce wood spars from wingtip to wingtip that are the main backbone of the wings. Most wings had just one. That means the three wings are strong enough to hold up without any wires to stiffen them up. All those wires are drag that is missing on the Fokker DR-1. Indeed, Anthony Fokker wasn't even going to put those single post braces between the wingtips, but that scared the pilots. So simple post braces were put out there to keep the pilots happy.
-It was Hugo Junkers that developed the thick wing section with it much higher CLmax etc that made the unbraced monoplane possible. He had focused on metal construction and a monoplane. Junkers wanted to reduced drag by getting rid of bracing so he had thick wing sections tested that could a thick enough spar and was delighted by the much lower induced drag and higher CLmax of the thicker sections. Anthony Fokker was working for Junkers at the time and basically stole the Junkers technology and applied it. -The Aerodynamics at Goetingen also claimed the discovery which is due to Reynolds effects but Junkers got things moving. .
I have 2 RC models of the DR1. They are extremely agile, climb quickly and turn swiftly with rudder input. They are a bit scary to fly actually and keep me on my toes. I'm a retired mechanical engineer (Boeing) and appreciate your analysis and data review. I actually have a obsession with WWI biplanes. I have over a half dozen RC models of various makes.
I have seen several in person, and in museums, and I never ever cease to be amazed at how small it actually was. the first time I saw one on the wall at a museum in Germany I thought it was a 1/4 scale model..... no, that's its actual size.
@@Justanotherconsumer It's really funny seeing modern "small" tactical fighters like the F-18, F-16, MiG-29 etc fly formation with 4-engine bombers of WW2 and realize just how close in size they are, with comparable bomb loads.
In 1969,as a kid I visited Old Rhinebeck. There was a Bleriot fastened vertically to a wall of one of the sheds. Absolutely tiny airplane. First time I smelled aircraft dope. There was a guy fixing the wing of an SE5. The memory sticks with me .
Fokker was a remarkable character and his company with his name too. Anthony Fokker was Dutch, born in the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia, and somehow ended up in Germany building warplanes for the German emperor. Somewhere around 1918 Fokker saw the writing on the wall and somehow managed to clandestinely smuggle his airplane factory by freight train to Holland, where he established Fokker again and build early airliners.
Good points and well made. From a "Rise of Flight" perspective, the DR I is THE superlative dogfighter - but, you can't catch anything that don't want to be caught, and you cant disengage from a bad situation. Already by late 1917, for myself anyway, speed is king.
For me it was the day the US successfully used energy fighting techniques vs Japanese zeroes for fighters, and for bombers an early mosquito raid, not sure which.
I´d also say that having such short wings helped the plane to achieve low radial stability, something that the ace pilots reportedly loved, and the rookie pilots hated. Especially due to the rotary engine that amplified the gyro effect when its RPMs changed.
About 40 years ago I read a book called "The RFC". It had a lot of information about the Sopwith Triplane and, according to Harry Hawker, the tripling configuration was an attempt to improve visibility by using three wings with reduced chord compared to the Pup. A side effect was that the narrower chord improved control in pitch and increased the roll rate. I suspect that's why the Tripehound was said to be a good gun platform. I also have a feeling, though no data, that the Triphound used similar spars as the Pup in a wing with shorter chord and that might have increased the thickness/chord ratio. This would give similar results as the later Gotington airfoils i.e. improved climb, better low speed handling, and better high alpha maneuvering limits. Cheers!
I have read that one of the things about the Sopwith Camel was that it's larger rotary engine and corresponding torque gave it the ability to make much tighter turns to the right than the left. So if a pilot got into a turning fight that frequently gave him an advantage.
It also made them predictable, if they saw tracers they'd always bank right, so could be followed easily with the guns with rudder input and that forewarning. Hence these things aren't so simple when analysing the effectiveness. Especially since doctrine has a huge effect. In ww2 the US developed on german energy fighting techniques to counter A6M fighters (zeros) as they were superior in every way other than speed. This rendered the zero effectively obsolete in fighter combat. However, this unfortunately had the effect of the Japanese putting them in a far more cost effective role than any amount of dogfighting- kamikaze. Less pilots and aircraft were lost per sortie and it inflicted huge losses on allied forces and was not cost effective to counter- a huge volume of AA fire was the best solution found, and severely restricted the allied navies operational freedom. My point being is an advantage's strength is only measurable with regards to its countermeasure.
Excellent explanation! I get asked about this frequently, and in the past I have given the wrong explanation that the Dr1 performance was based upon the 3rd main wing. I’m glad to be able to give a more accurate explanation when I am asked!
WW1 gets far too often overlooked these days, and I've read this book and many others, and so knew the truth about the Dr.1, glad to see more videos sharing this info and more on WW1. There was a lot of innovation and things tried, and many misconceptions about what did and did not work and why, as this very perfectly highlights.
I'm always learning Greg. Thank you. Great seeing New Zealand's 2 best airshows featured in this (('Classic Fighters', Omaka (every uneven year Easter) & 'Wirbirds Over Wanaka' (every even year Easter)). Si, Christchurch, NZ.
7:44 I remember this airfoil profile discussed in an aerodynamics book I read while trying to find a thesis. Thin wings are good at low reynolds number but at high speeds, the thicker ones have most of the wing in turbulent air, which has lower viscous pressure drag at higher reynolds number (i.e. higher speeds).
Well done, as expected! I was surpised that you didn't mention wingtip vortices as another disadvantage for the triplane. 3 wings ought to result in a 50% increase in that source of drag, over the biplane. Given the short, fat wings of the Dr.1, the resulting drag should be all the greater .....
They got rid of a lot of drag by not having to have as many bracing struts and wires. Those things create far more drag than most people realize. A low thickness to chord ratio doesn't have much in the way of drag reducing benefits until much higher speeds are reached.
As a simple layman and history buff I would like to say your explanation of the engineering, designs and performance is excellent and well presented. Thank you.
I usually find I'm learning something new from your videos Greg. This was yet another one! Thanks for another fascinating historic aviation documentary.
Interference drag can be a bit better explained in layman terms, if I may. Each wing crates a high pressure zone underneath it, and low pressure one above it, so putting another wing on top of your wing means your first low pressure area is impacted by the upper wing's high pressure area. They literally degrade each other's lift generation. This is the reason you'll see biplanes (and triplanes) with the wings staggered longitudinally, with the top wing placed ahead of the low wing. Staggering them this way staggers their pressure influence zones and reduces interference. You could stagger them the other way (top wing behind low wing), but that would put the top wing in the wake of the low wing at high alpha.
@@axelandersson6314 It does, actually: the fuselage has its own pressure field not unlike a wing, but more importantly, it has physical volume, and sits right in the middle of the wing, where the lift would otherwise be the highest, completely impeding airflow.
@@Æhere11 That is a completely different explanation to the one you gave initially. Your initial explanation also would predict that you could eliminate the increased interference drag of a tri plane design completely if your wings are sufficiently staggered, and this wouldn't be the case if we assume your second explanation is correct.
Ludwig Prandtl carried out his aerodynamic investigations in the wind tunnel of the AVA (Aerodynamische Versuchsanstalt, today: DLR) in Göttingen on Bunsenstraße. Later, there was also a building of the Aerodynamische Versuchsanstalt at the air base in Göttingen (where the Horten brothers carried out trials).
Well, I now know what plane Iron Maiden was talking about in their song Death or Glory: "...outside you will fear my name I ride a blood red triplane Turn like the devil Shoot straight from the sun Climb like a monkey Out of hell where I belong..." Pretty good song, as far as their new stuff goes... Thanks for the video Greg
"Turn like the devil, shoot straight from the sun Climb like a monkey out of hell where I belong"" Iron Maiden's brilliant song about it - from Book of souls - Death or glory - Loved how Bruce used the real quote.. and it's a cracking song...
I remember writing a "How To" article for the game "Rise of Flight" on how to turn left in a DR1. The DR1 could out turn everything in a right hand turn but an enemy player knew to try to force a left hand turn against a DR1. The reason why most people would not want to turn left is the gyroscopic procession of the rotary engine would immediately cause the nose to climb and induce a stall in a left hand banking turn. The paper I wrote changed that dynamic as people could now even out turn planes to the left and it took away any left hand turn advantage any inline engine plane had.
Perhaps the shorter span of a Triplane was also chosen by Reinhold Platz (Fokkers designer) to give confidence to the then very unusual unbraced cantilever wing design. It used a novel lightweight built up box spar. It was the fact it was glued together that gave Fokker the quality control problems. Conventional braced thin wing designs used solid wood spars. The layout for the earlier Sopwith triplane was in part chosen as for a given wing area it gave narrower chord wings for better pilot combat visibility.
I have never held a particular interest in the mechanics of planes, beyond flying them in games like the WW1 Warfighters VR game, and I got randomly recommended this video, probably because I was a fan of Sabaton's song and aforementioned VR game. have to say, you made a really nice point concisely and without losing me, and I wish more videos were like yours. Very understandable for the layperson as well.
Another factor in the DR-1's favor is that the wings don't require external support-- note the lack of flying wires. The outboard struts, AFAIK, were added for psychological and political reasons. Being able to deal with torsional stresses without external bracing was a big advance.
The DR 1s had a catastrophic problem with structural integrity, they were repeatedly pulled from service due to wing failures, improvements in quality control didn't fix the problem. The outboard struts were an absolute necessity, you'd want to reinforce the wings at much as possible and not overstress them during flight.
You literally turned my world upside down: i, like many others i'd wager, thought that the winning solution was the triplane configuration...thank you again Greg for another scientific, clarifying, informative, deeply researched vid!!!👏👏👏
excellent video and good useable information (for me) .... my full scale replica: it is slow, it is near impossible to see out of on the ground, in the air its not much better for visibility...you end up lifting a wing to see "around the corner" ... I can only fly it for about 25 minutes and begin getting tired...you have to hold a good amount of forward stick to keep it from climbing. Takeoffs require you to lift the tail early in the run to see where you're going...lots of rudder and some right aileron to keep her level...takeoff run is short; on landing you can come in very high pull power and dive steeply, it doesn't pick up much speed...on rollout keep forward stick to see ahead and let the tail down slowly; and then you're blind again!
There IS a rotary engine powered DR1 replica at the Old Rheinbeck aerodrone in upstate NY. However, they use their radial or opposed engine powered replica in their air shows. The rotary engine is just to unreliable to fly, they just run it up on the ground for demo.
That's interesting. Do you know if contemporary rotary engines were also so unreliable way back then? It makes sense now to use a radial if the rotary is too unreliable because the air frame will be so rare.
@@localbod Well they had their disadvantges, such as a totally waste oil system, the hollow crankshaft served as the intake manifold which limited the possible horsepower, and the engine mount was a bearing that probably wore out very quickly. The A/P's at Rheinbeck were good at maintaining the engines, but it was a lot of work. Also the rotary engines used castor oil, and the oil spray had the same effect on the pilots as drinking it. I guess the Red Baron wore diapers!
@@KennethScharf Thank you for your very knowledgeable reply. I knew they got sprayed with a lot of oil but I never realised that! The 'Incontinent Baron' doesn't have quite the same ring to it. 👍😎
Power regulation during landing with a rotary engine required a 'blip switch'. Essentially you slowed down for landing by cutting the magneto in and out. The thing is, while the ignition may be cut off, the fuel flow was still open and could accumulate within the cowling. It may be ignited when the spark came back on.
Nicely done. I Have an old model ( probably from the 40's) of a Dr 1 constructed by my uncle. I have it on the wall as one of many pieces of art in my "installation gallery" air bnb. Guests often remark on it. My uncle and I both fly, well I do, he is gone now. I put it up because I knew it's significance. I'm going to use the specs you graciously provided to add another element to that specific piece...a number puzzle I think, the person(s) that can solve it will get a comped stay.
There are two terms which relate to the reasons for the triplane phenomenon: -illusion of causality: This is where something appears on the surface to be the cause of some other effect, but isn't. -misattribution of causation: This is where someone believes an effect to have a specific cause, when their belief is incorrect. In this case, it's people falling for the illusion.
I remember reading something. It explained that the triplane had a unique advantage of each wing having a different stall speed. The faster wing would stall quicker. The slower wing would aid fast short take-off. Making the plane almost impossible to stall. I often wondered why this phenomenon was not utilized more for Carrier planes. Why not now?
Modern monoplane designs use wing washout to achieve a more gradual stall. The root of the wing is at a higher angle of incidence than the tip, meaning the root stalls first while the ailerons are still effective.
Lovely video as always. I totally agree with your analysis about Camels vs DR.1s. Even some of the best German pilots fell prey to poorly constructed DR.1s. LVM comes to mind.
There was a really good reason why most planes during WW1 was biplanes. While monoplanes in principle is the clearly better design (i don´t know to what extent that was known at the time) the main reason for a bi plane was to proved additional strength to wings that in most cases was built of poor to medium quality wood Basically the wings of a WW1 fighters basically acted like the upper and lower spar of a conventional wings, with wires binding them together.Basically just needed 2 wires on each wing and a spar. (while most planes had twice that). compare that to a monoplane of the era that had loads of wires and even needed a small tower to connect them to. The "other" wing is basically just a stabilization beam for the first wing. And just making it a wing have basically no drawback. Some planes in the end of the war had a very tiny lower wing that was there basically only as braising. Me knowing that since.. well i was pretty young, the 3 wing planes never made any sense to me. The middle wing doing basically nothing, apart from adding weight and drag. Maybe its as simple as this was not known at the time, or there was some other reason. What is really strange was that triwings was still made in the early 1920 when it really should be known that there was no point in it.
It has nothing to do with the quality of the wood. It's because fabric skin provides no structural strength. On a metal or wood-skinned wing, the skin provides a substantial amount of strength to supplement the wing spar.
The Sopwith Camel could do "whip turns" to the right because its engine acted like a huge gyroscope. In fact to turn the plane, you had to turn 90 degrees to your projected flight path, just like with a gyroscope.
Again you make a complex set of specifications in a way that an ordinary person, like myself, can completely understand. I sit on the edge of my seat waiting to see your videos. Thank you
There was another factor in maneuverability and that was engine torque. The Camel for one had a very high torque to the right that helped it turn better to the right and less to the left. It is one of the two reasons for the nickname Camel. As a Camel 🐪 is known to bite you as you ride it. The second was the slight hump where the twin machine guns were located. A Sopwith Camel was hard to control for novice pilots. The Camel was a progression from the Sopwith Triplane which had some design problems for maintenance such as the placement of the fuel tank. I am surprised that the RAF S.E. 5A wasn’t discussed. It was one of the fastest WWI aircraft with a 20 mph advantage over the Fokker triplane and one of the longer time in front line service as well including post war. Not as maneuverable as either the Camel or Fokker Triplane but had the speed to to enter or retreat as necessary.
Great video! There are so many documentaries that just regurgitate all the info that everybody knows, but this really left me feeling like I learned something new. Not just about the DR.1, but about aerodynamics and the history of early aviation. Thank you!
When I was young and dumb, post WWII, I was That Kid who asked too many Q's. So, inevitable, Why Three Wings? Answer. The plane could make it back home no matter how badly the wings were torn up. There was still sufficient lift.
Great video. I recall seeing a 4-wing plane flying in the 1960s, alongside many other multi wing planes flying in formation over Wallsend, near Newcastle, UK. I believe it was a Whitworth, a local engineering company, otherwise known for screw threads.
Did you know that when the prototype was rolled out of the hanger for the first time, the Test Pilot who had never seen it flat out refused to fly it dictating that the upper wing would fall off due to only the struts by the fuselage supporting it. Herr Folker promptly rolled it back into the hanger to modify it. The struts near the wing tips are COSMETIC, absolutely not needed for structural strength. They were installed only to appease the Test Pilot without his knowledge!
Great video, thank you! I am a big fan of the Dr. 1 in IL-2 because it has fantastic visibility, especially compared to most WW1 biplanes. The combination of great downward visibility and high climb rate make it a lot of fun for picking off unsuspecting foes!
Just to show how you can over-do a good idea; Fokker insisted that his head designer Reinhold Platz follow up the Dr.1 with a quintuplane, reasoning that five wings would be even better than three. Even Fokker had trouble flying this abomination and it was quickly rolled into a hanger and forgotten about. Btw, stunt pilot Frank Tallman flew both the Dr.1 and Sopwith Tripe and said that the Sopwith "club sandwich" was much nicer to fly.
Given the 'Tripehound' was mostly out of service before the DR1 was operational (not including the two prototypes), are there any reports of the two ever meeting in combat? The prototype Sopwith Triplane was over the Western Front in mid 1916 - by the time the Germans decided they wanted a copy, the concept was more or less obsolete, as engineering and design had caught biplanes up.
@@thosdot6497 I've never come across any accounts of the two meeting in combat. Only about 140 Tripes were produced, which shows what an impact its performance had. Also, the Dr.1 was suspended from operations because of a series of fatal crashes; by the time it was restored to service the Tripe had been replaced by the Camel.
HA! The Triplane at 15:24 was of a reproduction flown at Rhinebeck... The Olde Rhinebeck Aerodrome near Kingston, NY. I'd recognize the Hotel d' Paris scenery any day!! The annual Mid-Hudson Giant Scale RC Jamboree alongside their full scale counterparts is a must see for any early aviation fan. I'm hoping to fly my 1/3 scale Sopwith Pup up there again sometime soon! Thanks again, Greg, this was a fun episode!
Hi Greg, A great video! If you’re curious as to why all the airfoils in the early to mid First World War were very thin, why the Germans started using thicker airfoils late in the war, and why the British kept using thin airfoils, I’d recommend taking a look at the book “Fundamentals of Fighter Design” by Ray Whitford. But I’ll also try to cover this to the best of my ability in this comment. Anyway, a bit of a summary on wwi aerodynamics and the thin vs thick airfoils (Whitford goes into this more). It really comes down to how Reynolds numbers work and the fact that, during wwi, the Brits really didn’t realize they need to achieve Reynolds numbers in wind tunnel testing that equate to those experienced in flight, while the Germans did. A Reynolds number is a dimensionless quantity which is a ratio of a fluid flow’s viscous and inertial forces that can be used to represent a flow’s conditions and predict its’ patterns. A Reynolds number is calculated using a ratio of 4 things: the object’s length, the fluid flow speed, and the fluid density on top & and the fluid dynamic viscosity on bottom. When executing a wind tunnel test you design the test to have the same Reynolds number as the flow you are trying to represent in real life. For example, if you are testing a sub scale model, you need to change the other variables (speed, density, viscosity) to achieve the same Reynolds number that the fighter would achieve in its expected flight regime for those tests to be representative of said flight regime and the fighter’s performance. Additionally you could create a wind tunnel with a large enough test section to test the whole airframe which is what some companies & researchers did but that didn’t happen till the 1930s. When a wwi fighter is in flight it’s Reynolds number is around 1,000,000. Wind tunnel test data leading up till this point didn’t break a Reynolds number of 100,000, and this data showed that max coefficient of lift as well as lift to drag ratio increased as the airfoil was made thinner and the airfoils leading edge radius was reduced(ie made sharp). Hence the very thin (max 6% thick) and sharp pointy airfoils of almost all wwi fighters. The Germans (specifically Ludwig Prandtl who was a significantly important aerodynamics pioneer) completed a series of wind tunnel tests in 1915 at the University of Gottingen that approached a Reynolds number of 1,000,000. They learned that at this Reynolds number a thicker airfoil with a blunt leading edge developed much better maximum coefficient of lift and a better lift to drag ratio. Hence the distinct difference in shape between the Fokker Dr I Triplane’s Gottingen 298 airfoil (13% thick with a round&blunt leading edge) and the thin&sharp airfoils that preceded it. So what direct advantages did the superior blunt and thicker German airfoil afford its fighters? First, with a better maximum coefficient of lift the German airfoils increased maneuverability over thinner airfoils. Second, with a higher lift to drag ratio the German airfoils created more lift and less drag than thinner airfoils which translates to more efficient aerodynamics and helps increase the rate of climb. Third, the thicker wing provided sufficient internal volume to enclose a strong wing structure. As a result the thicker wing had no wire bracing, which thin airfoil fighters had needed up until that point and this reduced drag compared to thin airfoil airplanes. Fourth, the thick airfoil has much better and gentle stall characteristics than thinner airfoils, which is always good. So, at the Reynolds numbers of the flow conditions that wwi fighters were operating in, this led to much more effective and efficient wings on the resulting German fighters. And even though the thicker airfoil has a larger frontal area which, at a glance, could translate to more drag, at the operational Reynolds number it provides better aerodynamic performance (higher coefficient of lift at angle of attack, less drag at said angle of attack) which significantly overcomes those frontal area drag considerations. Additionally, as all things in aircraft design are trade-offs and interrelated in some way or another, the aerodynamic and structural benefits of the thicker wing would lead to the ability to make more beneficial trades in other aspects of its design that improve your airplane’s overall performance. The Brits did not really know/implement Reynolds numbers in this practical manner; when they tested a captured german Fokker DVII in mid 1918, they tested and assessed the aerodynamics by making a sub scale model and wind tunnel testing it. However they tested them at the low, less than 100,000 Reynolds number they had been using for their own designs. At these Reynolds numbers the German airfoils performed worse than their own designs. As stated earlier, this low Reynolds number was much lower than what they’d experience in operational flight. However if the British had tested the German airfoils at the correct 1,000,000 Reynolds number they would’ve performed similar to how they would’ve performed in flight ie they would’ve shown themselves aerodynamically superior to the extremely thin British airfoils. The British instead incorrectly concluded that the reason for the German fighter’s thick airfoil and wing was solely to provide internal volume for wing structure, and not due to any aerodynamic reason at all. And thus the Brits stuck with very thin airfoils for longer than the Germans and why in the images in your video of late wwi British fighters, they all have very thin wings & airfoils while the late German fighters had thicker ones. It’s all about Reynolds numbers and properly accounting for them when you test sub scale models, and how the Germans did this and the British did not.
A couple of points. The Germans in WW1 were remarkably derivavtive in aircraft design. The French were acknowledged leaders and at the war's beginning there were few indigenous German designs. As well as the triplane, the Germans followed the sesquiplane layout due to influence from the Nieuport 11 and 17. Secondly, it is worth understanding that in WW1, especially before late 1917/18 it was VERY easy to make your aircraft fall apart in the air. Some of the best aircraft were simply those that could be pushed pretty hard without the wings falling off. Personal note, Voss was probably better than Richtofen.
@@kirkstinson7316 Is this a reply to me? Yes, certainly the Germans eventually found their mojo (does Fokker count as German?) and the wood laminate construction method they used was their own. The DVII was of course a part of the blossoming of new German designs in the last year of the war... a year too late to really help. But their readiness to follow Allied design leads was real. The Albatros DV was really not improved by copying the sesquiplane layout, and the Triplane was a dead end, coming into service as the Allies were getting rid of it.
Personally I would rather like to fly SE5A with the ability to fly fast and high. To have the option to choose if I want to fight or just use the speed and avoid the fight if odds were against me. Not many German planes could catch it. Other option would be SPAD XIII.
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Baron Von Richt was clearly an ork...red made his faster.
Thank you again Greg - your insights are always interesting to hear.
The figures are only for Sopwith Camels with the Clerget 9B. Camels flew with 150 ho Bentley BR1s in the Royal Navel air service. They also used 140 hp Clerget 9BF engines and 160 hp Gnome Monosoupape 9N. A Bentley or Gnome engined Camel would be a different kettle of fish.
But....
What about...
The QUADRAPLANE????
Huh?
HUH???
You forgot mention that the propellar was bolted on the engine, and the whole engine rotated.
That caused gyroscope effect.
The richoffen mentioned "devil" was about that.
The fenomen made some turns and manovers hard to do,
but also in right hand You could use it, and the Fokker would turn nearly in the spot.
Same effect was the cause of Camels bad reputation,
as many new Camel pilots died from it.
If Gilette had been making airplanes in WWI, they'd have had five wings by 1918.
@@jaym8027 the Italians did so in about 1920...
I think it might have been six, three at each end of a flying ship. I'd need to look it up to check
😂 5 wings and a lubrication strip.
"60 'Transaereo' a massive aircraft schemed to carry 60 people over a distance of 850km (528 miles). A patent for a six-wing flying boat had been lodged by Gianni Caproni on 6 February 1919. Design and construction of what, at the time, was without doubt the largest aircraft ever produced began the same year"
@@jaym8027 oh man ! - - go home , cut your lawn . And after that - study books about aerodynanics !
Baron von Richthofen was a smart guy, he knew if he painted his plane red it would go faster that way he could make up for the triplane being a little slower.
Maybe he found the surface to be too rough and decided to go for some nice finish xD
The problem with painting it bright red, was that it attracted unwanted attention from Highway Patrol... he wracked up a lot of tickets because of that paint job.
Red wunz go fasta!
@@wolfshanze5980 I was doing 80 mph a RED Ferrari Flew by me at 120 . I saw hit Coming so Thumbs up and he Turned around and Waved..Two hours later no pull over for him.😁😁😁😁
Truman Sparks contends that it's the stripes that make it look fast, not the color.
The dr1 was so well known for the baron its often forgotten, the majority of Richtofen's victories were in Albatros types...
Neither was he the only one flying DR.I.
@@ottovonbismarck2443bruh
Indeed, only the last 11 of his kills were in a Dr.1. And the one he was flying when he was killed wasn't even painted red.
Werner Voss is in my head the DR.1 guy. His even had a mustache :D
Since I started learning more about the period my mental image of Richthofen changed to him in a red Albatross. It doesn't "help" that his book ends before he got his Fokker, tho I think he did a test flight in it. (as far as I remember)
The DR1 had a nasty reputation for shedding it's lower wing while recovering from a dive. This often resulted in a crash with a dead pilot.
It's worth noting: Germans knew the Sopwith F1 "Camel" Clerget engine was better and a direct bolt in replacement of the DR 1 Oberusel. They would grab every engine from captured/crashed Sopwiths and swap out for the added horsepower and reliability.
In this era, 20 extra horsepower was huge.
Almost a 20% boost over the 100 and change listed for the Fokker in the table.
Engine power (to weight, somewhat) was everything, even well into WW2.
Josef Jacobs used the captured Clerget in his Dr1. Jacobs flew the Dr1 for much longer when pilots were already converting over to the DVII.
@fhuber7507
Check out Jane's fighting aircraft of world war one.
Often they would salvage gnome' engines from downed French aircraft, and put them in dr1s.
The gyroscopic effect of the radial piston engine was a huge problem.
The advantage of the Dr 1 was its maneuverability and ability to turn on a dime almost hang in midair
How refreshing to hear a human on RUclips
you've been hanging out on the wrong side of youtube brother
Also, it truly seems like it was written by the narrator.
The tone varies with the material and moments of excitement are perfectly appropriate. Subscribed :)
Dude Greg’s channel is full of absolute banger videos. He knows what he’s talking about and finds a ton of juicy original documents.
@@Spit823 my nick here is maybe a leak to my past.
Do you usually watch video's without humans in them?
You can thank the Wright brothers for the thin wings. They did extensive wind tunnel research, but their wind tunnel was quite small, so the wings being tested were also quite small, only a few inches. At that size, a thin wing IS better. Reynolds numbers were not a thing yet, so they didn't realize the effect didn't scale up. I'd wager the university where the thick foil was invented had a full size tunnel.
Prandtl in Göttingen got his new windtunnel 1916/17.
And you can thank Australian aeronautical pioneer Lawrence Hargrave for developing the boxkite wing form used by the Wright brothers
Additional factor that might have influenced the Wrights, they used wing warping instead of ailerons, which I would imagine favored a thin flexible wing.
@@edwinball985I was just thinking that as well. I’d guess it would be difficult to warp the wings to turn with a much thicker wing, though I’d guess that was likely just a benefit of the thin wing that they developed, based on their wind tunnel testing.
No Wrights' wings were not the same construction of later wings, they were tilting wings and too light.
Another straightforward easy to understand explanation for why Snoopy was constantly foiled.
Why has no one secured a license to make scale Snoopy figures for scale models?
@@jwrockets
Good question!
Dude ( whispers ) Snoopy had a root beer problem
I would have expected Snoopy to have a natural advantage in a dogfight, but apparently not.
“During WWI, aircraft design was happening so rapidly that it was outpacing aircraft understanding.” A great line, that basically summarizes the video. Thanks again for your deep insights Greg, always a pleasure.
I always thought that triplanes were better because they allowed a more compact design with a short span, better roll rate, and even sturdier because of the shorter wings. But I also knew the Dr.1 has build issues and was slower, so the things I knew, I also knew I didn't really know, and I didn't know what I didn't know.
Now I do know what I didn't know. Thanks.
Short span does help roll rate, however the Dr.1's roll rate wasn't great anyway.
and you are not going really fast anyway
The Sopwith Triplane had ailerons on each wing, a total of six. The Fokker had them on the top wing only; just two. That must have made a difference to roll initiation.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles But how would having a wing area like a triplane in a monoplane be feasible back then with out it being a bomber?
@GreenBlueWalkthrough why do you want the wing area?
As an engineer (BSME and MSE), my comment is that you are pretty darn good at engineering understanding and interpretation as well as interesting videos. Nice videos and channel.
Thank you.
currently in school for my BS in Mechanical Engineering and i have to concur
He missed the part were Triplanes OP for the times because speed didn't matter but packaging,clime and manvuvering did... Much like in V tails and 4 props. Which I guess comes from a lack of understanding how in engeering you need to solve for your limitations... Which I'm sure if they could have built F-22s they would have... But they couldn't and likely wouldn't as what radar?
@GreenBlueWalkthrough did you watch the video?
@@01Bouwhuis No because he's sounds sumpriming aeogant and made mistajes he never has before...
Tom Sopwith stated that one reason for his triplane was to improve visibility for the pilot as three narrow wings blocked out less of the sky. Strangely the Fokker dr1 has very wide wings and visibility is awful as attested by the late Don Eliss who crashed his friends Dr1 right in front of me as he came in to land ; a broken prop and damaged wing tip was the result. He said (basically!) One has no idea where the ground is, the wings block your view forward and below. Fun fact :- Tom Sopwith pretty much saved England in both world wars ! he had aircraft and designs ready for WW1 as he could see what was coming ;and after the Government bankrupted him postwar, he carried on with a new company name :- Hawker (named after Harry Hawker Tom`s dead test pilot friend) so Sopwith then got Hurricanes ready (designed by Sydney Camm) before WW2 broke out! (thanks mate!) Then there's the Harrier ! they should all be Sopwiths !!
When taxiing the DR 1 the pilot had to weave back and forth to see.
The DR1 gets grounded soon after the Red Baron's death. The DR1 had a nasty habit of sheading it's lower wing when stressed. This usually resulted in the pilots death.
Nice to know 'England' was saved!
Also, the SHar which whacked so many of the Queen's enemies in the South Atlantic!
Tom Sopwith was a great designer, not always a great businessman. Under the Hawker name things were better run
A French pilot had escaped from Dunkirk and found himself at a DAR fundraiser one month later.
It was his turn to speak, with the hopes of selling lots of war bonds.
He started: "Madams and mademoiselles, the battle, she was que terrible. I shot down two German bombers, but then these three Fokkers came shooting at me..."
At the enunciation of the word "Fokker", especially given his French accent, the DAR members gasped loudly, crystalware was dropped to the floor, and Mrs Belvedere's chair broke. It was chaos. It was pandemonium.
A volunteer quickly jumped to the microphone and announced "ladies, ladies.... 'Fokker' is a type of German aircraft", to their great relief.
The French pilot resumed his story: "... anyway these three Fokkers were in Messerschmitts"
I'm stealing this joke
I don't uderstand the finale. What is Messerschmitts supposed to sound like?
@@riccardoorlando2262 The Joke was that the French pilot didn't mean Fokker as in the plane
And then Gaylord painted the cats tail
HAHAHAHAHAH
In a book called "Iron Men with Wooden Wings", it details the acceptance of the DR1 (among many other things in that amazing book). Richthofen initially rejected the DR1, saying it was "slow." His chief rival (whose name I cannot remember for the life of me) tested it after that and said, "She's slow." The Fokker reps were crushed, then he grinned and said, "She's slow, but I like the way she dances. I'll take a squadron." His squadron was so successful that Richthofen ordered the plane as well.
I read that book long ago.
Was that Werner Voss?
Thanks for mentioning that book; it ROCKS! Came out the same year as the movie "The Blue Max" and really gave you a feel for what early air-combat was like.
@@heneagedundas YES! I remembered that it started with a "V", but drew a blank after that.
@@heneagedundas That was going to be my guess. I think Udet flew with Richthofen, as did Goering although he's not legendary in that company.
Another advantage of the Dr1 was the flat turn ability. This was a skidding turn which basically allowed the airplane to appear to fly nearly sideways for a moment. Since the guns were facing forward, the severe skid ability allowed the guns to be swung to a different direction, left or right, other than the direction of travel. Werner Voss was very adept at this maneuver and surprised his adversaries by suddenly bringing his guns to bear without banking the aircraft. This was noted by his seven adversaries in his last dog fight and probably lost to history by those who didn't survive their encounters.
Agreed. I had the privilege of flying a Dr1 early on in my flying career. I remember how much you could slip and skid the aircraft. I thought to myself back then that “Wow, you can point the guns in a wide circular field without changing direction of the aircraft.” And how much of an advantage that must have been. The other thing I recall was even though the visibility forward was limited, the view behind you was unobstructed which must have made it harder for an adversary to sneak up on you. Just my 2 cents from an old pilot.
What an interesting observation! Thank you!
The manoeuvre is called Deflection Shooting. What was not mentioned was the Fokker Tri-planes instability, due to said short wings and short fuselage, you had to be a skilled pilot to fly it.
@@brianholden2724 This is not that.
In this manoeuvre a Dr.1 pilot would fly alongside their target then kick the rudder hard so that they ware facing their target for a moment and open fire with their forward firing guns.
Deflection shooting came into it -as with all dog fighting tactics- but this was a manoeuvre I've only heard about being used with the Dr.1.
@@chrishartley4553 An aircraft has only three rotations of axis Pitch, Roll & Yaw. The "maneuver" which is being called a skid is Yaw. Yaw is a maneuver that was employed before the advent of dog fighting. All aircraft land with a nose up approach because of the pilots position the nose of the aircraft would obstruct their view, to overcome this the pilot would yaw the plane to give himself a view of the airfield out the side of the plane, this is also used to land in cross winds. the attacking pilot would not fly directly behind but to either the left or right of his opponent and Yaw not to point his guns AT the plane but in front of it, called leading the target. He was shooting at the point where the plane was going to be in its flight path at the same time the bullets did, hence the name defection shooting, because they were not aiming directly at the aircraft. The Fokker was particularly good at this because of it's short fuselage enabling it to yaw at a more acute angle.
Obviously, as any expert would know, being painted red made them climb faster.
@@larsandersson5974 Unfortunately Göring's LUFTWAFFE had forgotten this fact...
I knew a guy who had time on a replica DR 1 with an O320, some on extended x country. He said it was a lot like a helicopter in cruise, neutrally stable to mildly unstable, requiring full time attention, and quite tiring. He said he could yaw it and it would just stay where it was pointed and could do crazy tight flat skidding turns, sort of like a dirt track car. That was without the rotary gyro effects adding to the fun.
How different is that from other planes of the era?
I’d imagine that designing for static stability was difficult at best with their rudimentary knowledge and crude early wind tunnels.
@@Justanotherconsumer Static stability is simply weathervaning effect and that part was understood at the time. I've read that the Camel was similar, but the DR1 being more extreme because it was so short coupled and had no fixed vertical stabilizer. Its yaw stability would only come from the aerodynamic center of the fuselage side area being aft of the C of G. Not much stabilizing moment. I think these airplane were the way they were on purpose for point-and-shoot purposes.
As a kid, I always thought the DR1 was some sort of killer machine. Never understood why it wasn’t copied. (Before I found out about the Sopwith Triplane).
Later, I assumed its greatness was due to roll rate, or something along those lines.
After not having thought about this plane much for decades, it will be good to learn the truth.
there was a great video from tommy sopwith who said they copied his triplane but forgot the importance of the wing cutouts so pilots could see below.
If Rise of Flight's representation of the Dr.I is anything to go by, "pure" roll rate is quite atrocious in this plane... although, IIRC, if you're used to WW2-era sims, most of the ones in RoF will feel super sluggish in the roll, anyway. The ailerons seem to hardly have any effect at all.
One trait of the simulated Dr.I that initially confused the hell out of me and then developed into my favorite trait the plane has to offer, is how insanely well it responds to rudder inputs. You don't initiate a flat turn by rolling the plane over using the ailerons (those hardly seem to do anything when employed on their own), but you give it a good kick of rudder and if you get it right, she will really turn on a dime. And I think RoF (and probably IL-2 "Flying Circus" more recently, but I don't own that module) really got it right here - having flown the Dr.I quite extensively back in the day, the incredible story of Werner Voss' last dogfight really started to make complete sense.
Internally braced wing. No flying wires. No flying wire drag.
The prototype DR1 didn't have the interplane struts. They were put in because the German air force demanded them. The airplane flew just fine without them.
@@fhuber7507even when under high loads when turning hard?
One factor not mentioned was that the Germans were also often fighting defensively and over their lines, it's low top speed was less of a disadvantage there as it was seldom chasing.
Quite frankly the advancements made with winged flight from 1903 to 1918 is astonishing. The ability to synchronize the engine with the machine gun always amazed me. This advancement in itself revolutionized air combat.
Such a lack of WW1 content out there with planes since obviously ww2 just casts a big shadow over it. I am excited for more of this as well as interwar stuff. There is just nothing so cool than the 20s especially when talking about the mail and transportation sectors of aviation at that era. The designs were all over the place in every country.
Greg has way too much fun finding all these wonderful pictures of his subjects. These were fantastic.
I never knew this, and I know a lot.
The DR1 was a master’s fighter mainly suited to pilots who could capitalize on its eerie flat turning capability and sudden climb capabilities. Read up on Werner Voss, maybe the greatest DR1 pilot (imo, the dogfight that killed Voss very likely would have killed Richthofen as well). Both of them were able to fly to the triplane’s strengths and brilliant enough to overcome the speed deficit.
I am not going to speculate on who was the better fighter pilot, both were superb! And yes I agree the air battle that Voss lost would have done in the Baron as well! Against that many opponents, they only had to be lucky once! And they were quite good opponents!
His only real chance was to have attempted to escape, but he apparently forgo several opportunities in order to continue the fight!
Combat fatigue or just overconfidence?
@@mahbriggs I think Voss was the more skilled flyer, but Richthofen probably would have avoided getting into that dogfight in the first place.
@@jeremypnet Richthofen's tactic was to use his aircraft engine as a bullet proof shield and to fly directly at the enemy plane.
@@mahbriggsAlthough escaping in something as slow as the Dr1 against something as fast as the SE5a would have been a challenge in its own right.
@@heneagedundas
Agreed!
Perhaps why he did not try.
I am just repeating what the attacking pilots stated in the after action reports.
I have read several differing accounts of the battle over the years. Some quite confusing, none of them the same!
Not surprising, a lot happened very quickly under a lot of stress!
Drag was also decreased by the Dr.I's lack of bracing wires. Excellent analysis as always.
That's one thing I noticed in the pictures of it, pretty clean lines between the wings compared to others.
The beauty of the thicker wing design was the internal bracing, making the bracing wires redundant.
There were 2 short wires for the top wing center and 2 for the wheels. Also the early DR 1s didn't have the outer struts until they started shedding the top wing.
Mr. Greg must not sleep with all this awesome content he puts out. It’s not like it’s something simple, I could get an engineering degree with how detailed the videos are. The research is beyond adequate, it’s AMAZING!!! Thank you Greg for all your dedicated work.
Yes, it seems unlikely that Greg sleeps. And I hope he doesn't start
The discrepancy in Camel pilot reports vs Dr. 1 pilot reports, for turn performance, could even be as simple as one plane having a newer engine than the other; since these were the days when time between overhauls was measured in dozens of hour, it could easily be that a Camel which had been flying all week with the same engine would have a disadvantage against a Dr.1 with a freshly-overhauled engine, and same thing the other way around, thus leading to a possible discrepancy.
absolutely right.
@@Telamon8 Camel also had three different engines, depending on sub type. The Germans lacked castor oil for the rotary engines, they had more reliability issues and shot-down Allied planes often had their engines taken for German use.
One thing that strikes with military operations is the amount of data collected due to large sample sizes. That and some of the nuanced observations that don't have the sample sizes or are not even obvious are quite interesting.
WW1 is by far my favorite era of military aviation. To have Greg provide a technical analysis of what made a plane like the Dr.1 tick is absolutely amazing. Thank you sir, your videos are a joy for those of us who enjoy learning about the quantifiable performance characteristics and engineering behind these magnificent machines.
Snoopy always got shot down flying his Sopwith Camel doghouse against the Red Baron's Fokker.
The doghouse variant of the Camel had lousy aerodynamics and Snoopy was a noob.
Always figured Snoopy fought in a Bristol Fighter. He engaged the Red Baron with a flexible gun mounting.
Doghouses don't have a very good a rate of climb.
I only came to the comment section looking for Snoopy. Thanks.
@@TheSaturnVthe power to weight is pretty lousy.
A dog isn’t even a single horsepower, and there’s almost nothing helping the dog transfer power to the craft.
1) The death of Baron Manfred von Richthofen actually had nothing to do with the Fokker Dr. 1.
2) The Baron was Prussian aristocracy.
3) Oswald Boelcke was the first professional fighter pilot. He was the first one to develop dogfighting rules. Literally he was the father of dogfighting!
4) Captain Oswald Boelcke taught Baron Manfred von Richthofen.
5) The cause of Baron Manfred von Richthofen's death goes back to when he flew an Albatros D.V. During a dogfight he was severely wounded in his head. He was never the same. His flying skills, decision making, personality and more.
6) After each dogfight he was laid up a long time in terrible pain.
7) With the new person he became everyone was very concerned about him. His family begged and pleaded for him to be released from the military due to all of his problems since being shot in the head.
8) Despite his health, Baron Manfred von Richthofen refused to stop and no one forced the issue for his sake.
9) When he was shot flying the Dr 1 he was violating the rules he had for everyone including himself. He flew over the oppositions trenches. He was hit with one round that killed him. He still managed to land the plane albeit a was a bit rough. The landing carriage would need to have been repaired.
10) Souvenir hunters decimated the plane. There was very little left.
Please forgive me any typos, grammatical/spelling errors or errors other errors as I am only human and not an A.I. All information was cited in good faith.
Forgive me but I am working on memory.
Richthofen was only 25yrs when he died. By WW1 pilot standards, he feels like an old man. "It's not the age, it's the mileage" (Indiana Jones).
I went to Reinbeck NY for an airshow with Dr1, d7, sopwith camel and more as a kid, 50+ years ago. Thanks for bringing back those memories, and presenting your data so well.
My theory as to why people thought thin wings = more speed is that they decrease the frontal area and thus produce less drag.
Some high speed jets used razor thin wings, most notably the F104 Starfighter.
Well things get weird when you approach mach 1.
@@philiphumphrey1548 The F-104's wing isn't that thin, remember that thickness is considered relative to the chord and the Starfighter's wings are tiny. The unique part is that the leading edges are sharpened instead of being rounded.
As an example, the F-104 has a consistent thickness-to-chord ratio of 3.5%, the F-4's thickness ratio decreases from 6.4% at the root to just 3% at the tip.
@@smittywjmj The chord of the F-104 is very long, though. It's wings actually are quite thin relative to their chord. The sharp leading and trailing edges and thin wing improve supersonic drag dramatically at the expensive of massively increased subsonic induced drag.
@@J7Handle It's thin, just not incredibly so. It's a consistent 3.5% ratio across the span, which is thicker than many tapered wings at the tips. The F-105 has a 3.7% tip, the F-4 is just 3% at the tip. Of course, neither of these planes have wingtip hardpoints like the F-104. The F-5 has a thicker 4.8% ratio for a more direct comparison, and which is still fairly thin.
Basically I'm only saying that the phrase "razor thin" is hyperbolic and perhaps misunderstanding the sharpened leading edge.
The DR-1 doesn't have wire bracing. All of the other planes before the DR-1 had a bunch of wires crisscrossing between struts and wings. The DR-1 doesn't . The wings are short wingspan, and if you look inside the wing there are TWO different spruce wood spars from wingtip to wingtip that are the main backbone of the wings. Most wings had just one. That means the three wings are strong enough to hold up without any wires to stiffen them up. All those wires are drag that is missing on the Fokker DR-1.
Indeed, Anthony Fokker wasn't even going to put those single post braces between the wingtips, but that scared the pilots. So simple post braces were put out there to keep the pilots happy.
-It was Hugo Junkers that developed the thick wing section with it much higher CLmax etc that made the unbraced monoplane possible. He had focused on metal construction and a monoplane. Junkers wanted to reduced drag by getting rid of bracing so he had thick wing sections tested that could a thick enough spar and was delighted by the much lower induced drag and higher CLmax of the thicker sections. Anthony Fokker was working for Junkers at the time and basically stole the Junkers technology and applied it.
-The Aerodynamics at Goetingen also claimed the discovery which is due to Reynolds effects but Junkers got things moving. .
There are things so deep and complex that only intuition can reach it in our stage of development as human beings.
I have 2 RC models of the DR1. They are extremely agile, climb quickly and turn swiftly with rudder input. They are a bit scary to fly actually and keep me on my toes. I'm a retired mechanical engineer (Boeing) and appreciate your analysis and data review. I actually have a obsession with WWI biplanes. I have over a half dozen RC models of various makes.
I have seen several in person, and in museums, and I never ever cease to be amazed at how small it actually was. the first time I saw one on the wall at a museum in Germany I thought it was a 1/4 scale model..... no, that's its actual size.
Saw a B17 at the Museum of Flight in Seattle and it seemed amazingly small, especially next to an F4.
@@Justanotherconsumer It's really funny seeing modern "small" tactical fighters like the F-18, F-16, MiG-29 etc fly formation with 4-engine bombers of WW2 and realize just how close in size they are, with comparable bomb loads.
In 1969,as a kid I visited Old Rhinebeck. There was a Bleriot fastened vertically to a wall of one of the sheds. Absolutely tiny airplane. First time I smelled aircraft dope. There was a guy fixing the wing of an SE5. The memory sticks with me .
@@100thdragoonI still remember info on the side of the box of the first F-4 model that I built as a kid: "...over twice the bomb load of a B-17..."
1:22 : “Meta”
97 / 5,000
Great to see the best channel on youtube adding new videos this often again. Thank you!
Thanks for scratching a long-endured historical itch. Good work!
Fokker was a remarkable character and his company with his name too. Anthony Fokker was Dutch, born in the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia, and somehow ended up in Germany building warplanes for the German emperor. Somewhere around 1918 Fokker saw the writing on the wall and somehow managed to clandestinely smuggle his airplane factory by freight train to Holland, where he established Fokker again and build early airliners.
Had contact with the UK pre war as well
I don't watch much videos about aircrafts. But this was very clear and good lesson for aerodynamics. Subscribed.
Good points and well made. From a "Rise of Flight" perspective, the DR I is THE superlative dogfighter - but, you can't catch anything that don't want to be caught, and you cant disengage from a bad situation. Already by late 1917, for myself anyway, speed is king.
For me it was the day the US successfully used energy fighting techniques vs Japanese zeroes for fighters, and for bombers an early mosquito raid, not sure which.
Camel pilots had the same complaint by mid 1918 I.e, too slow to catch the opposition
It's amazing having ww1 aircraft engineering explained by dagoth Ur! Love your voice mate, carry on🎉
I´d also say that having such short wings helped the plane to achieve low radial stability, something that the ace pilots reportedly loved, and the rookie pilots hated. Especially due to the rotary engine that amplified the gyro effect when its RPMs changed.
About 40 years ago I read a book called "The RFC". It had a lot of information about the Sopwith Triplane and, according to Harry Hawker, the tripling configuration was an attempt to improve visibility by using three wings with reduced chord compared to the Pup. A side effect was that the narrower chord improved control in pitch and increased the roll rate. I suspect that's why the Tripehound was said to be a good gun platform.
I also have a feeling, though no data, that the Triphound used similar spars as the Pup in a wing with shorter chord and that might have increased the thickness/chord ratio. This would give similar results as the later Gotington airfoils i.e. improved climb, better low speed handling, and better high alpha maneuvering limits.
Cheers!
I have read that one of the things about the Sopwith Camel was that it's larger rotary engine and corresponding torque gave it the ability to make much tighter turns to the right than the left. So if a pilot got into a turning fight that frequently gave him an advantage.
It also made them predictable, if they saw tracers they'd always bank right, so could be followed easily with the guns with rudder input and that forewarning.
Hence these things aren't so simple when analysing the effectiveness. Especially since doctrine has a huge effect.
In ww2 the US developed on german energy fighting techniques to counter A6M fighters (zeros) as they were superior in every way other than speed. This rendered the zero effectively obsolete in fighter combat. However, this unfortunately had the effect of the Japanese putting them in a far more cost effective role than any amount of dogfighting- kamikaze. Less pilots and aircraft were lost per sortie and it inflicted huge losses on allied forces and was not cost effective to counter- a huge volume of AA fire was the best solution found, and severely restricted the allied navies operational freedom.
My point being is an advantage's strength is only measurable with regards to its countermeasure.
Excellent explanation! I get asked about this frequently, and in the past I have given the wrong explanation that the Dr1 performance was based upon the 3rd main wing. I’m glad to be able to give a more accurate explanation when I am asked!
WW1 gets far too often overlooked these days, and I've read this book and many others, and so knew the truth about the Dr.1, glad to see more videos sharing this info and more on WW1. There was a lot of innovation and things tried, and many misconceptions about what did and did not work and why, as this very perfectly highlights.
I'm always learning Greg. Thank you. Great seeing New Zealand's 2 best airshows featured in this (('Classic Fighters', Omaka (every uneven year Easter) & 'Wirbirds Over Wanaka' (every even year Easter)). Si, Christchurch, NZ.
7:44 I remember this airfoil profile discussed in an aerodynamics book I read while trying to find a thesis. Thin wings are good at low reynolds number but at high speeds, the thicker ones have most of the wing in turbulent air, which has lower viscous pressure drag at higher reynolds number (i.e. higher speeds).
I loved all the photos from Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome. I got to go there in 1981 and hope to go again someday.
Well done, as expected!
I was surpised that you didn't mention wingtip vortices as another disadvantage for the triplane. 3 wings ought to result in a 50% increase in that source of drag, over the biplane.
Given the short, fat wings of the Dr.1, the resulting drag should be all the greater .....
They got rid of a lot of drag by not having to have as many bracing struts and wires. Those things create far more drag than most people realize. A low thickness to chord ratio doesn't have much in the way of drag reducing benefits until much higher speeds are reached.
@@Ensign_Cthulhu That was in the video.
Wingtip votices are something different.
As a simple layman and history buff I would like to say your explanation of the engineering, designs and performance is excellent and well presented. Thank you.
I usually find I'm learning something new from your videos Greg. This was yet another one!
Thanks for another fascinating historic aviation documentary.
Interference drag can be a bit better explained in layman terms, if I may. Each wing crates a high pressure zone underneath it, and low pressure one above it, so putting another wing on top of your wing means your first low pressure area is impacted by the upper wing's high pressure area. They literally degrade each other's lift generation.
This is the reason you'll see biplanes (and triplanes) with the wings staggered longitudinally, with the top wing placed ahead of the low wing. Staggering them this way staggers their pressure influence zones and reduces interference. You could stagger them the other way (top wing behind low wing), but that would put the top wing in the wake of the low wing at high alpha.
Beechcraft Stagger Wing is opposite bi plane wings
@@salex5442 To maximize the pilot's forward visibility, apparently.
This wouldn't explain how interference drag can be generated where a wing intersects the fuselage.
@@axelandersson6314 It does, actually: the fuselage has its own pressure field not unlike a wing, but more importantly, it has physical volume, and sits right in the middle of the wing, where the lift would otherwise be the highest, completely impeding airflow.
@@Æhere11 That is a completely different explanation to the one you gave initially. Your initial explanation also would predict that you could eliminate the increased interference drag of a tri plane design completely if your wings are sufficiently staggered, and this wouldn't be the case if we assume your second explanation is correct.
Ludwig Prandtl carried out his aerodynamic investigations in the wind tunnel of the AVA (Aerodynamische Versuchsanstalt, today: DLR) in Göttingen on Bunsenstraße. Later, there was also a building of the Aerodynamische Versuchsanstalt at the air base in Göttingen (where the Horten brothers carried out trials).
Well, I now know what plane Iron Maiden was talking about in their song Death or Glory:
"...outside you will fear my name
I ride a blood red triplane
Turn like the devil
Shoot straight from the sun
Climb like a monkey
Out of hell where I belong..."
Pretty good song, as far as their new stuff goes...
Thanks for the video Greg
Iced Earth did a good song about the red baron as well....Im a huge Maiden fan😉👍
@jasonrackawack9369 Just checked it out, not bad. I had heard of Iced Earth but never listened to them till now.
Nobody can touch maiden though🫡
I love how this guy had a different quality microphone for every single one of his videos
"Turn like the devil, shoot straight from the sun
Climb like a monkey out of hell where I belong""
Iron Maiden's brilliant song about it - from Book of souls - Death or glory - Loved how Bruce used the real quote.. and it's a cracking song...
More WW1 content please Greg!!!
It's coming at you very soon. If this video does well, then I'll do another WW1 video in the next month or so.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles thanks Greg!!
I remember writing a "How To" article for the game "Rise of Flight" on how to turn left in a DR1. The DR1 could out turn everything in a right hand turn but an enemy player knew to try to force a left hand turn against a DR1. The reason why most people would not want to turn left is the gyroscopic procession of the rotary engine would immediately cause the nose to climb and induce a stall in a left hand banking turn. The paper I wrote changed that dynamic as people could now even out turn planes to the left and it took away any left hand turn advantage any inline engine plane had.
@1:45 Likely because of bad logic due to Confirmation Bias. The Fallacy that fits this problem would be Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc.
This video is way better than I expected. Facts, explanations, context. Great work! A delight to watch.
Perhaps the shorter span of a Triplane was also chosen by Reinhold Platz (Fokkers designer) to give confidence to the then very unusual unbraced cantilever wing design. It used a novel lightweight built up box spar. It was the fact it was glued together that gave Fokker the quality control problems. Conventional braced thin wing designs used solid wood spars.
The layout for the earlier Sopwith triplane was in part chosen as for a given wing area it gave narrower chord wings for better pilot combat visibility.
I have never held a particular interest in the mechanics of planes, beyond flying them in games like the WW1 Warfighters VR game, and I got randomly recommended this video, probably because I was a fan of Sabaton's song and aforementioned VR game.
have to say, you made a really nice point concisely and without losing me, and I wish more videos were like yours. Very understandable for the layperson as well.
Another factor in the DR-1's favor is that the wings don't require external support-- note the lack of flying wires. The outboard struts, AFAIK, were added for psychological and political reasons. Being able to deal with torsional stresses without external bracing was a big advance.
The DR 1s had a catastrophic problem with structural integrity, they were repeatedly pulled from service due to wing failures, improvements in quality control didn't fix the problem.
The outboard struts were an absolute necessity, you'd want to reinforce the wings at much as possible and not overstress them during flight.
Greg: you never cease to impress! Thanks again for a well developed video!
Great video, very interesting new informations for me Greg! 🙂 Maybe the Fokker D.VIII should get an own video in the future?
You literally turned my world upside down: i, like many others i'd wager, thought that the winning solution was the triplane configuration...thank you again Greg for another scientific, clarifying, informative, deeply researched vid!!!👏👏👏
excellent video and good useable information (for me) .... my full scale replica: it is slow, it is near impossible to see out of on the ground, in the air its not much better for visibility...you end up lifting a wing to see "around the corner" ... I can only fly it for about 25 minutes and begin getting tired...you have to hold a good amount of forward stick to keep it from climbing. Takeoffs require you to lift the tail early in the run to see where you're going...lots of rudder and some right aileron to keep her level...takeoff run is short; on landing you can come in very high pull power and dive steeply, it doesn't pick up much speed...on rollout keep forward stick to see ahead and let the tail down slowly; and then you're blind again!
Thanks, it's nice to hear from someone with a replica.
Very interesting, thankyou. I'd never thought about this topic before!
There IS a rotary engine powered DR1 replica at the Old Rheinbeck aerodrone in upstate NY. However, they use their radial or opposed engine powered replica in their air shows. The rotary engine is just to unreliable to fly, they just run it up on the ground for demo.
That's interesting.
Do you know if contemporary rotary engines were also so unreliable way back then?
It makes sense now to use a radial if the rotary is too unreliable because the air frame will be so rare.
@@localbod Well they had their disadvantges, such as a totally waste oil system, the hollow crankshaft served as the intake manifold which limited the possible horsepower, and the engine mount was a bearing that probably wore out very quickly. The A/P's at Rheinbeck were good at maintaining the engines, but it was a lot of work. Also the rotary engines used castor oil, and the oil spray had the same effect on the pilots as drinking it. I guess the Red Baron wore diapers!
@@KennethScharf Thank you for your very knowledgeable reply.
I knew they got sprayed with a lot of oil but I never realised that!
The 'Incontinent Baron' doesn't have quite the same ring to it.
👍😎
Power regulation during landing with a rotary engine required a 'blip switch'. Essentially you slowed down for landing by cutting the magneto in and out. The thing is, while the ignition may be cut off, the fuel flow was still open and could accumulate within the cowling. It may be ignited when the spark came back on.
Nicely done. I Have an old model ( probably from the 40's) of a Dr 1 constructed by my uncle. I have it on the wall as one of many pieces of art in my "installation gallery" air bnb. Guests often remark on it. My uncle and I both fly, well I do, he is gone now. I put it up because I knew it's significance. I'm going to use the specs you graciously provided to add another element to that specific piece...a number puzzle I think, the person(s) that can solve it will get a comped stay.
There are two terms which relate to the reasons for the triplane phenomenon:
-illusion of causality: This is where something appears on the surface to be the cause of some other effect, but isn't.
-misattribution of causation: This is where someone believes an effect to have a specific cause, when their belief is incorrect. In this case, it's people falling for the illusion.
Brilliant. Thank you, that's a really good way of putting it.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Glad to help!
This is like listening radio podcast or audio book. I like your style, good voice.
I remember reading something. It explained that the triplane had a unique advantage of each wing having a different stall speed. The faster wing would stall quicker. The slower wing would aid fast short take-off. Making the plane almost impossible to stall. I often wondered why this phenomenon was not utilized more for Carrier planes. Why not now?
Burt Rutan's designs used front canards to the same affect.
Modern monoplane designs use wing washout to achieve a more gradual stall. The root of the wing is at a higher angle of incidence than the tip, meaning the root stalls first while the ailerons are still effective.
As they day, you never stop learning. Top video.
The term you are looking for is "Confirmation Bias" , but statisticians know "correlation is not causation".
Lovely video as always. I totally agree with your analysis about Camels vs DR.1s. Even some of the best German pilots fell prey to poorly constructed DR.1s. LVM comes to mind.
There was a really good reason why most planes during WW1 was biplanes. While monoplanes in principle is the clearly better design (i don´t know to what extent that was known at the time) the main reason for a bi plane was to proved additional strength to wings that in most cases was built of poor to medium quality wood
Basically the wings of a WW1 fighters basically acted like the upper and lower spar of a conventional wings, with wires binding them together.Basically just needed 2 wires on each wing and a spar. (while most planes had twice that). compare that to a monoplane of the era that had loads of wires and even needed a small tower to connect them to.
The "other" wing is basically just a stabilization beam for the first wing. And just making it a wing have basically no drawback. Some planes in the end of the war had a very tiny lower wing that was there basically only as braising.
Me knowing that since.. well i was pretty young, the 3 wing planes never made any sense to me. The middle wing doing basically nothing, apart from adding weight and drag.
Maybe its as simple as this was not known at the time, or there was some other reason.
What is really strange was that triwings was still made in the early 1920 when it really should be known that there was no point in it.
So basically basically basically'ying
Simply put, the bays formed between the struts and bracing wires of a biplane turns those two wings into a open wing box for structural strength.
It has nothing to do with the quality of the wood. It's because fabric skin provides no structural strength. On a metal or wood-skinned wing, the skin provides a substantial amount of strength to supplement the wing spar.
Greg, you are up there with the best professors I studied under in college. Indeed, your videos should count as college credit.
The Sopwith Camel could do "whip turns" to the right because its engine acted like a huge gyroscope. In fact to turn the plane, you had to turn 90 degrees to your projected flight path, just like with a gyroscope.
I really need to talk about this one day.
Again you make a complex set of specifications in a way that an ordinary person, like myself, can completely understand. I sit on the edge of my seat waiting to see your videos. Thank you
Greg, you really have to stop. I learn so much from these videos, it's just maddening.
I guess I'll just have to keep watching.
Excellent presentation
There was another factor in maneuverability and that was engine torque. The Camel for one had a very high torque to the right that helped it turn better to the right and less to the left. It is one of the two reasons for the nickname Camel. As a Camel 🐪 is known to bite you as you ride it. The second was the slight hump where the twin machine guns were located. A Sopwith Camel was hard to control for novice pilots.
The Camel was a progression from the Sopwith Triplane which had some design problems for maintenance such as the placement of the fuel tank.
I am surprised that the RAF S.E. 5A wasn’t discussed. It was one of the fastest WWI aircraft with a 20 mph advantage over the Fokker triplane and one of the longer time in front line service as well including post war. Not as maneuverable as either the Camel or Fokker Triplane but had the speed to to enter or retreat as necessary.
I was about to make the same comment about the camel's rotary engine gyroscopic effect, but your comment had more detail.
@@MyMongo100 Thank you
Great video! There are so many documentaries that just regurgitate all the info that everybody knows, but this really left me feeling like I learned something new. Not just about the DR.1, but about aerodynamics and the history of early aviation. Thank you!
When I was young and dumb, post WWII, I was That Kid who asked too many Q's.
So, inevitable, Why Three Wings?
Answer. The plane could make it back home no matter how badly the wings were torn up. There was still sufficient lift.
Great video. I recall seeing a 4-wing plane flying in the 1960s, alongside many other multi wing planes flying in formation over Wallsend, near Newcastle, UK. I believe it was a Whitworth, a local engineering company, otherwise known for screw threads.
Did you know that when the prototype was rolled out of the hanger for the first time, the Test Pilot who had never seen it flat out refused to fly it dictating that the upper wing would fall off due to only the struts by the fuselage supporting it. Herr Folker promptly rolled it back into the hanger to modify it. The struts near the wing tips are COSMETIC, absolutely not needed for structural strength. They were installed only to appease the Test Pilot without his knowledge!
Great video, thank you!
I am a big fan of the Dr. 1 in IL-2 because it has fantastic visibility, especially compared to most WW1 biplanes. The combination of great downward visibility and high climb rate make it a lot of fun for picking off unsuspecting foes!
Just to show how you can over-do a good idea; Fokker insisted that his head designer Reinhold Platz follow up the Dr.1 with a quintuplane, reasoning that five wings would be even better than three. Even Fokker had trouble flying this abomination and it was quickly rolled into a hanger and forgotten about. Btw, stunt pilot Frank Tallman flew both the Dr.1 and Sopwith Tripe and said that the Sopwith "club sandwich" was much nicer to fly.
Given the 'Tripehound' was mostly out of service before the DR1 was operational (not including the two prototypes), are there any reports of the two ever meeting in combat? The prototype Sopwith Triplane was over the Western Front in mid 1916 - by the time the Germans decided they wanted a copy, the concept was more or less obsolete, as engineering and design had caught biplanes up.
@@thosdot6497 I've never come across any accounts of the two meeting in combat. Only about 140 Tripes were produced, which shows what an impact its performance had. Also, the Dr.1 was suspended from operations because of a series of fatal crashes; by the time it was restored to service the Tripe had been replaced by the Camel.
HA! The Triplane at 15:24 was of a reproduction flown at Rhinebeck... The Olde Rhinebeck Aerodrome near Kingston, NY. I'd recognize the Hotel d' Paris scenery any day!! The annual Mid-Hudson Giant Scale RC Jamboree alongside their full scale counterparts is a must see for any early aviation fan. I'm hoping to fly my 1/3 scale Sopwith Pup up there again sometime soon! Thanks again, Greg, this was a fun episode!
We do not quit playing because we grow old, we grow old because we quit playing
This was a great way to learn this information, thanks for putting this together!
5:29 the Sopwith Camel also suffered from aerodynamic issues, what with it being a doghouse and all...
Hi Greg,
A great video! If you’re curious as to why all the airfoils in the early to mid First World War were very thin, why the Germans started using thicker airfoils late in the war, and why the British kept using thin airfoils, I’d recommend taking a look at the book “Fundamentals of Fighter Design” by Ray Whitford. But I’ll also try to cover this to the best of my ability in this comment.
Anyway, a bit of a summary on wwi aerodynamics and the thin vs thick airfoils (Whitford goes into this more). It really comes down to how Reynolds numbers work and the fact that, during wwi, the Brits really didn’t realize they need to achieve Reynolds numbers in wind tunnel testing that equate to those experienced in flight, while the Germans did. A Reynolds number is a dimensionless quantity which is a ratio of a fluid flow’s viscous and inertial forces that can be used to represent a flow’s conditions and predict its’ patterns. A Reynolds number is calculated using a ratio of 4 things: the object’s length, the fluid flow speed, and the fluid density on top & and the fluid dynamic viscosity on bottom.
When executing a wind tunnel test you design the test to have the same Reynolds number as the flow you are trying to represent in real life. For example, if you are testing a sub scale model, you need to change the other variables (speed, density, viscosity) to achieve the same Reynolds number that the fighter would achieve in its expected flight regime for those tests to be representative of said flight regime and the fighter’s performance. Additionally you could create a wind tunnel with a large enough test section to test the whole airframe which is what some companies & researchers did but that didn’t happen till the 1930s.
When a wwi fighter is in flight it’s Reynolds number is around 1,000,000. Wind tunnel test data leading up till this point didn’t break a Reynolds number of 100,000, and this data showed that max coefficient of lift as well as lift to drag ratio increased as the airfoil was made thinner and the airfoils leading edge radius was reduced(ie made sharp). Hence the very thin (max 6% thick) and sharp pointy airfoils of almost all wwi fighters.
The Germans (specifically Ludwig Prandtl who was a significantly important aerodynamics pioneer) completed a series of wind tunnel tests in 1915 at the University of Gottingen that approached a Reynolds number of 1,000,000. They learned that at this Reynolds number a thicker airfoil with a blunt leading edge developed much better maximum coefficient of lift and a better lift to drag ratio. Hence the distinct difference in shape between the Fokker Dr I Triplane’s Gottingen 298 airfoil (13% thick with a round&blunt leading edge) and the thin&sharp airfoils that preceded it.
So what direct advantages did the superior blunt and thicker German airfoil afford its fighters? First, with a better maximum coefficient of lift the German airfoils increased maneuverability over thinner airfoils. Second, with a higher lift to drag ratio the German airfoils created more lift and less drag than thinner airfoils which translates to more efficient aerodynamics and helps increase the rate of climb. Third, the thicker wing provided sufficient internal volume to enclose a strong wing structure. As a result the thicker wing had no wire bracing, which thin airfoil fighters had needed up until that point and this reduced drag compared to thin airfoil airplanes. Fourth, the thick airfoil has much better and gentle stall characteristics than thinner airfoils, which is always good. So, at the Reynolds numbers of the flow conditions that wwi fighters were operating in, this led to much more effective and efficient wings on the resulting German fighters. And even though the thicker airfoil has a larger frontal area which, at a glance, could translate to more drag, at the operational Reynolds number it provides better aerodynamic performance (higher coefficient of lift at angle of attack, less drag at said angle of attack) which significantly overcomes those frontal area drag considerations. Additionally, as all things in aircraft design are trade-offs and interrelated in some way or another, the aerodynamic and structural benefits of the thicker wing would lead to the ability to make more beneficial trades in other aspects of its design that improve your airplane’s overall performance.
The Brits did not really know/implement Reynolds numbers in this practical manner; when they tested a captured german Fokker DVII in mid 1918, they tested and assessed the aerodynamics by making a sub scale model and wind tunnel testing it. However they tested them at the low, less than 100,000 Reynolds number they had been using for their own designs. At these Reynolds numbers the German airfoils performed worse than their own designs. As stated earlier, this low Reynolds number was much lower than what they’d experience in operational flight. However if the British had tested the German airfoils at the correct 1,000,000 Reynolds number they would’ve performed similar to how they would’ve performed in flight ie they would’ve shown themselves aerodynamically superior to the extremely thin British airfoils. The British instead incorrectly concluded that the reason for the German fighter’s thick airfoil and wing was solely to provide internal volume for wing structure, and not due to any aerodynamic reason at all. And thus the Brits stuck with very thin airfoils for longer than the Germans and why in the images in your video of late wwi British fighters, they all have very thin wings & airfoils while the late German fighters had thicker ones.
It’s all about Reynolds numbers and properly accounting for them when you test sub scale models, and how the Germans did this and the British did not.
Thats how I think when I go out for a beer. One beer is good, two is bether there for 15+ must be awesom!
as a young engineer with intrest in airplanes... I wish for a mentor like you, Greg. Great job as always!
A couple of points. The Germans in WW1 were remarkably derivavtive in aircraft design. The French were acknowledged leaders and at the war's beginning there were few indigenous German designs. As well as the triplane, the Germans followed the sesquiplane layout due to influence from the Nieuport 11 and 17.
Secondly, it is worth understanding that in WW1, especially before late 1917/18 it was VERY easy to make your aircraft fall apart in the air. Some of the best aircraft were simply those that could be pushed pretty hard without the wings falling off.
Personal note, Voss was probably better than Richtofen.
Uhm what about the VII? Judged better then any of the allied aircraft and end of the war. So much so they were ordered destroyed
Didn't I just make a DVII video a few weeks ago?
@@kirkstinson7316 Is this a reply to me? Yes, certainly the Germans eventually found their mojo (does Fokker count as German?) and the wood laminate construction method they used was their own. The DVII was of course a part of the blossoming of new German designs in the last year of the war... a year too late to really help.
But their readiness to follow Allied design leads was real. The Albatros DV was really not improved by copying the sesquiplane layout, and the Triplane was a dead end, coming into service as the Allies were getting rid of it.
awesome analysis. I had never heard any of this, and I have been oggling WWONE planes for decades. Truly awesome.
Personally I would rather like to fly SE5A with the ability to fly fast and high. To have the option to choose if I want to fight or just use the speed and avoid the fight if odds were against me. Not many German planes could catch it. Other option would be SPAD XIII.