Death of Immelmann

I am interested in reading more about the death of Immelmann. Years ago, all the books I read suggested he shot himself down. Possibly that is not the case. I have been away from the subject (ie WWI) for far too long and have lost touch with the present literature. Could someone point me in the right direction to read about both sides of this issue? Thanks!

[leo]

The German govt. said he shot himself down and blamed Anthony Fokker. Anthoony deniec any responsibility and said he was shot down by the RFC. The RFC took credit honestly believing they had brought him down. The Germen govt had blamed AF because max was a great hero and they did not want the public to think he could have been vanquished. The truth? Take your pick.

[Reinout]

The Germans performed three investigations:
-the official military investigation
-Fokker's inquiry (cover-up action)
-a pilot's investigation. He independently checked out all aspects and concluded (like the official military evaluation) that a synchgear malfunction had been the cause.

The British gave credit as soon as they learnt the identity of the pilot. It's good morale/propaganda value...just like LvR and Ball etc.. It wasn't uncommon.

Kind regards,

Reinout

[stephen]

But losing your prop isn't necessarily equivalent to crashing... did Boelcke come down in a controlled glide but die in a crashlanding? Are such details even known? I just wonder about automatically concluding that the loss of a prop will send a plane to a certain crash. I'm sure somebody has already thought of this, I just don't know what they concluded...

[Barrett]

Assuming Immelmann lost one blade of his prop, I can believe that the resulting imbalance at high rpm of a rotary engine could lead to structural damage and/or failure, almost irrelevant to how quickly power could be shut off. The Eindekker was not a sturdy bird.

Stephen: reference Boelcke: see[url="http://www.geocities.com/aw3aw3/dicta.htm"] ]http://www.geocities.com/aw3aw3/dicta.htm</a>
That's my theory on the subject.

Secondly, assuming Immelmann did himself in, the likelyhood of shooting both blades completely off is pretty remote imho. Besides, many Eindecker pilots did the same thing (including Tony Fokker)- some survived...some didn't.

Funny thing is; of all WWI aeronautic enigmas, I thought the demise of Immelmann was pretty much case closed.

Regards,
Rosebud

[PeterL]

"I read somewhere" (here we go again) that it was not so much the imbalance which resulted from Max shooting lumps of his own airscrew which did for him, but that a peice of the debris severed the flying wires.

Peter L

[Reinout]

Stephen,

Immelmann shot off one blade of his prop (to my knowledge anyway) and so the pressures and strains coming from the prop was unequal. Therefore the rotary engine started to tear its rivets loose. This had happened to Max earlier, when he tested an E-type with 3 machine guns. His quick thinking saved his life then as he cut the engine instantly. Why didn't he do it during his final moments? That's the real mystery to me. Or maybe he tried and was too late? On that June day, when the engine came away, the structural integrity of the plane was a shambles - no escape for the poor man.

Kind regards,

Reinout

Peter,
This sounds like an interpretation based on the investigation by Fokker. His report stated that upon close examination of control wires they showed evidence of breaking from contact with projectiles; characteristics which appear differently than if they were torn from stress in a crash. His report concluded they must have been shot away. This, could just as easily be interpreted as being sheared by debris in mid-air?

I remember reading something years ago, when I was a kid, that claimed the "shot-off prop" theory was untrue. The "real" story was that, during a dogfight, Max went into his patented turn, an RFC pilot anticipated it, & squeezed off a burst at the top of the loop - no mechanical fault.

Is this simply a retelling of the RFC's claim?