aWarbirds—Fighter
Planes of WWI
Prepared by Kim Cox
Performance
vs. Appearance
The planes of the WWI era,
often its appearance didn’t fit it’s performance. One example is the British S.E.5a. This aircraft was awkward looking, boxy; yet
it was rugged and fast, one of the best fighter planes of the war.
On the other hand,
some of the plane’s appearances and potential matched excellently. A perfect example of this is the
Austro-Hungarian Hansa-Bradenburg D.I.
Pilots nicknamed the plane “coffin.”
It flew like it looked, freaky.
Aircraft
Engines
Hurting badly in 1918,
The
Immelmann Maneuver
Many think Max
Immelmann constructed the “Immelmann Turn”, although the link between the
aerial maneuver and the German may have been instituted by a journalist. Wherever it came from, during WWI, pilots
used it to either attack or get out of the way of an attack.
The Immelmann Turn
started with a dive to get the thrust to carry them to the next step. The pilot then yanked abruptly on the
joystick to boot the plane into a precipitous arcing ascend with a roll. This guaranteed the plane, when it reached
the top of the loop would be right-side-up.
Once the pilot
achieved the turn, he had two options.
He could escape a fight by enjoying his height prevalence, continuing to
fly straight or dive and follow the loop through while rolling.
Once a pilot found an
enemy fighter on his tail, the pilot of the front plane could shake off his
attacker by doing the Immelmann maneuver.
On the other hand, if the pursuing pilot dived on a target, overshooting
it, his next action would be to use the Immelmann turn to give himself another
shot.
Brief
Survey of Military Aviation (Overview)
Three major roles were
defined for aircraft during the First World War: reconnaissance, bombing and fighting. Airplanes were used first for aerial
scouts—spying on the enemy from the air and learning their secrets. At first the scouts ignored their enemy
numbers, then began shooting at them with rifles and eventually with machine
guns. Soon they began dropping hand
grenades from their planes. Promptly an
aircraft was designed for each need:
reconnaissance planes some armed for defense; fighter planes,
exclusively designed for shooting down other planes; and bombers carried more
immense loads of explosives. Much of
what we know and learn today about warbirds came from the fundamental
experiences of the pilots of the First World War.
Aircraft
Beginnings
Orville and Wilbur
Wright made the first powered, controlled flight in 1903. After that, the military acclaimed the
possibilities of airplanes and the US Army bought their Model A biplane for
$30,000 in 1909.
Observation balloon’s
importance was already confirmed and the airplanes frankly appeared more
maneuverable as observation platforms.
The first experiments of dropping dummy bombs were accomplished in 1910
and a patent was granted for an aircraft gun mount that same year. In 1911 hand grenades were dropped from
airplanes and pistol shots were fired from one plane to another in 1913. These were only isolated events that happened
during peacetime, as research, I suppose.
Prior to the First
World War records of speed and endurance were broken rapidly. With each passing year they grew greater.
Aircraft
of WWI
All the combatants
sent reconnaissance airplanes out to watch each others troops movements and
detected their artillery at the beginning of World War I. The pilots on each side would in fact fly by
each other and wave. They felt they were
fellow aviators and above the combat taking place below their wings. Of course this camaraderie did not last.
It’s unknown as to who
fired the first shots, but soon these scouts carried rifles in their
planes. A French scout shot down a
German scout with a machine gun that had been mounted to his observer’s station
on
The first strategic
bombing raid was instituted in November of 1914 against Zeppelin hangers. The dropping of hand grenades over the side
hastily changed to dropping hundreds, then thousands of pounds of explosives
from the bomb bays and wing racks.
During WWI, the race
between nations for the first and best technology began. The Allies held the record for a time when
Roland Garros equipped reflection plates to the propeller of his Morane-Saulnier
which enabled him to fire a machine gun through its arc. Though the Germans then developed a system of
synchronizing machine guns to fire rhythmically through the arc. The Allies followed suit by fashioning their
own synchronize, fitting it onto aircraft such as the S.E.5, Sopwith Camel, and
SPAD. Then Germans’ planes were the
Fokker Dr. 1, the Fokker DVII and the Albatros.
Aircraft in WWI showed
what could happen, although air power proved inconsequential and had no real
affect on the outcome of the war. They
could spy movements of soldiers on the ground and attack bombers could make
life deplorable for ground troops.
Terror was brought to civilians by heavy bombers. The design and technology of airplanes leapt
ahead during the war and laid the foundation for the aerial armadas of the
Second World War.
The
Greatest WWI Warbirds
R.A.F.
S.E.5a (
This aircraft
confirmed to be the better fighter plane than the more heavily armed German
fighters of that time. It’s single
wing-mounted machine gun could be swiveled upward by the pilot, enabling it
ideal for shooting downward at the surprised aircraft beneath it. With its top speed of 138 mph it could climb
as high as 19,500 feet and dive magnificently.
The S.E.5a was one of the fastest fighters during WWI.
A 1917 plane,
single-engine biplane fighter, manufactured by the Royal Aircraft Factory in
Nieuport
17 (
The successor of the
Nieuport 11 “Bebe”, the Nieuport 17 was bigger, heavier, better-armed and
faster, a swift climber. It was favored
by the most famous aces of WWI,
In 1916, the Nieuport
17 was a single-engine biplane fighter with an engine of one 110-hp Le Rhone
air-cooled rotary, speeds reaching 110 mph at 6,560 ft. Its range/endurance was two hours. It was armed with one machine gun; carried a
crew of one; and had a wingspan of twenty-six feet, ten inches; a length of
eighteen feet, eleven inches and weighed one-thousand, two-hundred and
forty-six pounds.
Sopwith
Camel F.1 (
It got its nickname
from the hump-like fairing that covered its twin machine guns. In trained hands the Camel was deadly in
aerial combat although it was arduous to fly.
Its rotary engines were powerful and full of torque. This was the first British plane to carry
twin machine guns that was belt-fed, eliminating the need for changing
magazines. The Camel proved remarkably
maneuverable. Manfred von Richthfen’s
Fokker Triplane was shot down by Captain Roy Brown, flying a Camel.
In 1917, the Sopwith
Camel F.1 was a single-engine biplane fighter, manufactured by Sopwith Aviation
Co., Ltd. in
It had one 130-hp
Clerget air-colled 9-cylinder rotary engine which allowed speeds of 115 mph at
6,500 feet. The Camel’s range/endurance
was two hours and thirty minutes. It
carried two machine gun and a crew of one.
The wingspan spread to twenty-eight feet with a length of eighteen feet,
nine inches and a weight of one-thousand four-hundred and fifty-three pounds.
SPAD
S.XIII (
Probably the most
famous fighter of WWI, the SPAD is associated by most American minds with Eddie
Rickenbacker and the “Hat in the Ring” sqaudron, though many French aces also
loved and flew the SPAD. It had a high velocity
of climb and the stamina of its construction that enabled it to dive steeply
without loosing its wings. (Most
biplanes would fold and plummet to the ground if they were dove too fast and
steep.) The plane was fast for its day
and didn’t handle well under low speeds, requiring it to be landed under power
and it dropped like a brick if its engine switched off.
In 1917, a
single-engine biplane fighter that was manufactured by S.P.A.D. (Sociere
Anonyme Pour l’Aviation et ses Derives) in
Fokker
D.VII (
The Fokker D.VII,
unremarkable in appearance and the best-performing, best all-around German
fighter during the First World War. It
had sturdiness, maneuverability, good speed, extraordinary rate of climb and
its performance at high-altitudes was remarkable. Hanging on its propeller at a forty-five
degree angle, it was still fully flyable, enabling it to shoot upward into an
enemy’s belly. The plane was tolerant of
beginner’s mistakes and was respected by its adversaries. Evidence of this came at the end of the war
when the victorious Allies named it in the terms of the Armistice as a war
weapon that had to be handed over.
In 1918, a single-engine
biplane fighter, manufactured by Fokker Flugzeug-Werke GmbH in
Fokker
Dr.1 Triplane (
With only three wings
but an airfoil between the wheels of its landing gear, the Dr.1’s lifting area
allowed it to climb and out-turn any Allied aircraft. The plane wasn’t very fast but its superior
maneuverability allowed it to evade pursuit.
There was only one way it could be outdone and that was by its opponent
diving on it and striking before the pilot had time to take evasive
action. The Red Baron, Manfred von
Richthofen popularized the Dr.1. The
Dr.1 is second only to the Fokker D.VII as the best remembered German plane of
WWI.
The Dr.1, in 1917 had
a wingspan of twenty-three feet, seven inch; a length of eighteen feet, eleven
inches and weighed one- thousand two-hundred eighty-nine pounds. It was a single-engine fighter triplane
manufactured in
List
of Films Featuring WWI Warbirds
*Ace of
Aces
*The
Dawn Patrol
*The
Great Waldo Pepper
*Layfayette
Escadrille
*The
Trial of Billy Mitchell
*The
Blue Max
*Hell’s
Angels
*Wings
Recommended
*Angelucci, Enzo. “The
Rand McNally Encyclopedia of Military Aircraft”
*Bonds, Ray. “The
Illustrated Directory of Modern Weapons: Warplanes, tanks, missiles, warships,
artillery, small arms.” Crescent Books, 1985.
*Cole, Dick Major;
Lightbody, Andy; Poyer, Joe. “The Great Book of Fighter Planes: The Worlds Warbirds” Publications
International, 1990
*Cross, Roy. “Great
Aircraft and their Pilots”
*Dwights, Don. “Famous
Flyers and the Ships They Flew” Grossett & Dunlap, Inc., 1969.
That’s just a
few.
Sources:
“Planes”, http://www2.eos.net/speed/homepage.htm
“Warbirds Arts and
Letter” CD Rom