Can someone tell me about the dangers that early pilots faced?

Help!

[mike_baram]

Looks like someone has a homework assignment.

For openers, the wings sometimes failed in a dive. The pilot sometimes sat right in front of 32 gallons of aviation gasoline in a non-self sealing tank. The engines of the day were balky; some would swallow valves, others would have problems from the ignition system, rotaries would sometimes blow off a cylinder and early ones would have explosions in the crankcase. Add to this the lack of air/ground communication and lack of parachutes and during battles, anti-aircraft fire, incendiary bullets and structure failure from the violent maneuvers necessary to escape an attacker.
Then there were problems arising from the primitive compasses and instruments.
Finally, metallurgy had not advanced to the point where metals would perform reliably, i.e., valves would burn, pistons would collapse.
Note that many of these problems were brought into perspective during the course of the war, between 1914 and 1918.

just look through this forum a lot, and try to get bibliographical references if you think it's just a old tale or speculation. You can probably bet it's right 3/4ths of the time. I just mentioned earlier that they did not normally test the designs as thoroughly as they do now... so at times it simply took an act of courage to try and get your airplane off the ground. In fact James McCudden died as a result of an engine problem and he died in the resulting crash... don't believe there was an enemy plane in sight--disturbingly enough the SE5 was actually one of the more reliable planes of the war--to say nothing of capricious little beasts like the Fokker Triplane (in case anybody is wondering I dislike this aeroplane, so take that into advisement, so it colors my judgement)
Jarrod

Jarrod

I can understand why you may dislike the DR I as by the time they 'solved' the wing problem it was begining to look dated, however all planes of the time suffered problems and that is the biggest problem that there was no such thing as quality control so one SE5 would not be the same as the next.

I guess that any field that was in its infancy would suffer problems eg Submarines turning into iron coffins, battleships with dodgy armour (HMS Hood springs to mind!). The only way to iron out problems was for the planes to be flown in combat which inevitably means deaths, it is a sad fact of life.

Mark, Climbing back off his soap box!

[mike_baram]

Let's not forget the chronic diarrhea experienced by pilots of radial-powered planes caused by inhaling fumes rom engines lubricated with castor oil.
How about "no parachutes"......crash and die or jump and die.
Mid-air collisions.
Flying low and meeting ground fire.
Flying low and meeting the ground. Some of those planes were very sluggish in response to the joystick.

How did you guess?

[mike_baram]

Jarrod,
You have a point. I'm flying the DRI now in RBII3D, and it's a struggle keeping it straight and level. The bugger climbs up and to the left like it was overdosed on viagra.
Mike

They only built 200 or so for a reason!
MVR had a DVII waiting on 'that' day but chose the DR1 ,I guess he was a bit silly eh?.
low,slow,straight and level etc while unaware of his enemies exact location should be added to the list as this is the way many pilots probably got it, Just using up thier 2 weeks before the jastas smash them to the earth like bugs. Then, sweeping into France....... sorry carried away

perhaps we should add the ferry flights and weather. Many pilots died ferrying thier machines to landing fields! some transfers cost 3 or more pilots (appx 1/3 of a sqn). I think Bishop stuffed up one particular squadron transfer for the Germans.See any thread relating to Bishop

chris

[Barrett]

The biggest danger: ignorance (not limited to aviation by any means.) Until approximately 1916-17, elementary aerodynamics were seldom taught and therefore not widely understood. The most common cause of aviator deaths was the stall-spin and abrupt stop at the bottom. Basic aeronautical knowledge advanced perhaps two decades in four years.