"Camel and rotary engined fighters" Topic

Which way did they turn fastest, left or right? I have conflicting information. I always understood the DR 1 Triplane was as nimble in both directions but the Camel turned faster to the pilots right.

And the Nieuport 17?

"Which way did they turn fastest, left or right? I have conflicting information." "I always understood the DR 1 Triplane was as nimble in both directions but the Camel turned faster to the pilots right."

Usually to the right, since that's the direction the engine is spinning.

"I always understood the DR 1 Triplane was as nimble in both directions but the Camel turned faster to the pilots right."

Both turned faster to the right (compared to turning to the left), but the DR 1 could turn faster to the right than the Camel could.

Thanks.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerget

Here is a link to the engine that powered both the Camel & the Nieuport

Basically it depends on which direction the engine's going; the way most rotaries were set up, right was quick (going with the engine torque), left slow, as it was going against it. I don't know if anyone built an engine rotating the other way (no engineering reason why not, but conventions rapidly become established) but if so any aircraft with it would turn faster to the left. The Nieuport 17, Dr.I and some Camels used essentially the same engine – the Dr.I's engine was a knock-off of the 110hp Le Rhone 9, which was used in many allied fighters, although the Clerget was more usual for Camels. (Nieuports with the Clerget were very rare – the Le Rhone was standard on Nieuport single-seaters.)

(As a random aside the SS D.IV was equally fast either way, as nifty gearing arrangements meant the crankcase, prop and cylinders spun clockwise from the pilot's pov, but their torque was balanced by the crankshaft and other bits spinning anti-clockwise….)

Dom.

Actually, the Triplane is no different than the Camel when it comes to physics. They were both powered by rotary engines and the fact that the entire rotary engine spins in one direction (to the right) produces torque that tends to pull the aircraft around to the right pretty fast (and tends to pull the nose down)-- turning to the left is slower (and tends to lift the nose up).

I know the guys at air shows can perform flat turns to the left in the Fokker Triplane reproductions that look pretty impressive. Keep in mind, these pilots are not 18 – 20 year old kids with less than 100 flight hours.

Looks can be deceiving from the ground.

Talk to someone that operates one of these and see what he has to say about it. I strongly suspect he or she will tell you it has characteristics just like any other aircraft with a rotary engine.

There's a relatively cheap book that deals with both of these aircraft in a general fashion: Sopwith Camel vs. Fokker Dr.1 by Jon Guttman (Osprey). If you want to read something that is a lot more technical (and will make your head hurt); Three Wings for the Red Baron by Leon Bennett (White Main Books – 2000) provides an excellent analysis of the Triplane and a number of other WWI aircraft.

It is my personal opinion that the statement, ". . . the DR 1 Triplane was as nimble in both directions but the Camel turned faster to the pilots right." is false.

Given pilots of equal talent, the Triplane is probably more maneuverable than a Clerget powered Camel -- especially at altitudes in excess of 8,000 feet.

At altitudes of less than 8,000 feet the Clerget powered Camel does better but the Fokker Triplane is probably still more maneuverable -- primarily because of the size and weight of the aircraft.

In head to head combats between March and May of 1918 -- considering only actual casualties (killed, wounded, captured), the Camel pilots suffered 32 casualties as opposed to 13 admitted German casualties.

If we consider claimed victories (some British units were notorious for over claiming); The Camel pilots claimed 61 victories over Triplanes while the Germans claimed 56 victories over Camels.

You can draw your own conclusions from those numbers.

Personally I find both sets of statistics meaningless because you have to know the circumstances of the encounters. Aerial warfare generally was not a jousting match -- most of the time it was cold blooded murder.

If Richtoffen sneaks up on a rookie Camel pilot and shoots him down, that says very little about the relative merits of a Camel or a Triplane.

Seems I'm no help at all here

mjc

This thread brings up some memories of arguments past, when the computer game Red Baron II came out! they had the torque of the camel and Dr1 backasswards!

The Camel could turn to the RIGHT faster because the motor, guns, gas tank and pilot were all in the first 4 feet of the aircraft and the wings gave such a tremendous lift.

The same was true of the Dr1. When either tried to turn to the LEFT the nose of the AC rose up, due to the torque of the motor, thus slowing the turn. When turning to the Right the nose tended to dive.

Both the Dr1 and the Camel killed more of their own pilots than enemy combatants in the early stages of the life of the aircraft because of these trats.

As always at your service,

Colonel Hairy Haggis

I understood the issue to be one of precession rather than torque: the latter had a much greater influence on the behavior of the aircraft.

The traditional "turns faster to the right" resulted from the common control input of pulling back on the stick (after rolling) to tighten a turn: in a rotary this would not pull the nose up but instead would turn it to the right.

IMO, the precession makes the aircraft equally nimble in all directions, and that a really good pilot (someone like Voss, for example) could do wonders with the machine if familiarity and understanding of its effects were maximized.

That's an interesting thought Don. I've never heard anyone put it that way.

But isn't it just a rose buy any other name?

Precession is the tilting or turning of the gyro axis as a result of applied forces. When a deflective force is applied to the rim of a stationary gyro rotor, the rotor moves in the direction of the force. When the rotor is spinning, however, the same forces causes the rotor to move in a different direction, as though the force had been applied to a point 90° around the rim in the direction of rotation.

Of course our gyro (rotor) is anything but stationary, and I'm not sure exactly what kind of a vector force would be applied by those factors that enter into a given turn (even propeller pitch would be a factor -- I'm reaching for my Tylenol now) -- so it gets a lot more complicated because of these other forces. Then again, I guess you could limit the discussion to the net 90 degree vector at any point in time and ignore the rest because those forces would be supplemental to the processional effects. I've never seen anyone analyze this in the terms you seem to be proposing.

On the one hand would be interesting to see exactly how it all works together. With computer assisted graphics I think someone could actually pull this off. On the other hand this too would probably make my head hurt by the time they got done.

I think the 'torque' explanations are intended to simplify (and perhaps over simplify) the whole process for the less mathematically gifted folks like myself.

mjc

hi

No.

If the motor rotates right, the torque turns it left. the Old "opposite and equal" part.

The camel produces a secondary problem not involved with "precession", but rather "P" factor(often confused).

In this situation, what happenes is that the airflow off the prop is a spiral flow around the fuse, a problem with all tractors, and the airflow PUSHES on the fin.

Thus, commonly left in reaction to the motor rotating right, with the camel doing right from P factor.

To fight this, in addition to prop versus geared motor, you have some motors with twin rows turning in opposite directions.

Rocky

I know the guys at air shows can perform flat turns to the left in the Fokker Triplane reproductions that look pretty impressive. Keep in mind, these pilots are not 18 – 20 year old kids with less than 100 flight hours.

Probably equally to the point, most of them are flying with radial engines…. ;-) Very few modern repros actually have rotary engines, due to expense / lack of availability, and often a sensible nervousness about the blooming things….

Dom.

Since this was not cleared up:

I believe the DR I had a radial, not rotary engine. Looks similar, but totally different where this issue is concerned.

Radials have a fixed block (most of the masss).

The Camel had a huge amount of spinning mass.

The P-factor affects all prop planes (in theory), and causes them to turn left not right (assuming a standard rotation of the prop). It is a different issue from the turning mass of a rotary engine.

dunno…I'd bet the farm on the Dr-I having a rotary.

I agree the P-factor affects all prop planes.

As posted above: The precession from the rotating mass of the engine worked in pitch and yaw no matter the direction. In theory, a pilot rolled left could/would kick hard left rudder and push on the stick to whip around in a quick left turn. Counter-intuitve to normal control inputs, for sure, but if practiced/understood (as I believe a hot stick such as Voss did…) the 90-degree shift in control inputs could be utilized to really make the bird sing, as it were.

-just my non-authoritative opinion, of course! ; )

I stand corrected, the primary use engine was:
Ofberursel Ur.II 110h.p.

Which is a Rotary…copy of a French engine.

Some other engines where in different versions of the DR I, and the listed as rotary, radial, and radial-rotary?

Hi

Virtuially all modern flying DR1s are powered by the 250 Warner Scarab rotary motor and perform somewhat differently.

Rocky

Yep – most replica Dr.Is (and a good few other "rotary" replicas) use radial engines, but all WWI Dr.Is were rotary – the Germans did a little design work on radials pre-war, but didn't utilise them at all in WWI.

I seem to remember doing the bicycle-wheel-on-a-handle experiment years ago, and discovering, iirc, that the torque pulls up and to the left when you try to raise the wheel (which is spinning clockwise to the holder, i.e. right like a WW1 propeller), but when you drop the wheel it pulls down and to the right. This would mean that any rotary engined plane when turned to the right would pick up gravity as added energy in the turn, thus quickening turns to the right; but would be fighting gravity (somewhat) when turning to the left. However, the torque would tend to aid a rolling movement to the left, i.e. would increase roll rate -- just like Rocky added into our rules….

Hi

Gyroscopic precession.

To name the creature is to call its secret name and thus have POWER!

Grin.

Rocky

Have a look at this link to see a reproduction rotary in action!

link

The whole website is worth exploring, but be prepared for a few hours of fascination at the keyboard.

Thanks for the link! Is that a pair of levers changing air and fuel mixture that I see? I understand that "throttling back" a rotary could be tricky, but he makes it look easy enough. Of course, he is standing there and using both hands….

Great site!

And to think I used to worry about flick starting model aero engines!

Mind you they are Kiwi's, so I expect bolting real airplane engines to a pick up truck is considered quite normal! :o)

This is the nation that gave us the $5,000 USD home-made cruise missile….