Wing of Nieuport 11 same as Nieuport 17?

abufletcher · 22 April 2005, 06:41 AM

Did these two aircraft use the same internal structure to the wing? I've noticed that the drawings in the Windsock datafile for the Nieuport 17 show two short "half" ribs between each full rib -- but the Nieto drawings don't show any half-ribs at all.

abufletcher · 22 April 2005, 06:47 AM

Also, the Nieto drawings show the fuse with straight box fuse sections while the Nieu 17 sections tapered towards the bottom.

EricGoedkoop · 22 April 2005, 07:12 AM

The wing area was increased to 15 sq. meters on the 17 from 13 sq. meters on the 11. This is what led to the 17 also being called the "15" when the real Nieuport 15 was a Hisso-powered two-seater (and a dog). I would guess that the structure might have been changed - they were not the same wing. I believe all the v-strutters had a fuselage bottom narrower than the top, but the taper was slight and is often missed in drawings.

abufletcher · 22 April 2005, 08:00 AM

The taper on the Nieuport 17 looks quiet pronounced - it would be a major goof to miss this.

EricGoedkoop · 22 April 2005, 09:17 AM

It's not always evident in photographs, though, and some of the period drawings that are used as source material are waaa-aa-a-y off. There are lots of major goofs in drawings that are otherwise beautifully done. Isn't it Nieto's Fokker D.VIII that has the spars completely wrong?

abufletcher · 22 April 2005, 09:30 AM

Makes one wonder if there can every be anything like a "definitive source" for WWI aircraft.

Tripehound · 22 April 2005, 06:18 PM

The fuselage bottom longerons from behind the cockpit to the tail were closer together than the top longerons, until the N28. This gave a trapezoidal cross section. It's not apparent on the aircraft using stringers to obtain rounded sides, such as the N17bis, N24, N24bis, N25 and N27.

Colin A Owers · 22 April 2005, 06:19 PM

The only definitive source for any WW1 aircraft are the factory construction plans. Even these can be misleading as they were modified as the type was produced. The S.E.5a is a case in point with two sets of wings that had different rib layouts. There were other internal changes that do not affect the external appearance.

You work with the data you have at the time. Some factory three-views are the worse drawing you can ever find. They were thrown together to give an idea of how the final product would look.

Some plans such as elevations, front and side views are accurate when they can be compared with other structural plans but it is all a matter of luck as to what you have. The person who spends a life time researching a particular type will often produce one set of great plans for that aircraft. These then become the base for any drawn afterwards.

A good looking plan is often the worse plan to chose as a base. I found that when drawing Japanese types for the late lamented "Aviation News" that the best looking plan was often the one with the most errors. These errors became evident when one tried to fit markings onto the plan. You know it runs fom this panel to that panel, but when you draw it up it has no resemblance to the making in fact!

New data is being unearthed all the time. The US National Archives are a case in point. I have found remarkable data there. I just wish more Americans would use this resource.

The Datafiles are as good as you will get at the time they are published. You will note that Ray will publish revised plans as more data becomes available.

Colin A Owers

EricGoedkoop · 22 April 2005, 06:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by abufletcher

Did these two aircraft use the same internal structure to the wing? I've noticed that the drawings in the Windsock datafile for the Nieuport 17 show two short "half" ribs between each full rib -- but the Nieto drawings don't show any half-ribs at all.

Back to the original question -

The Macchi drawings of the 11 (see here) don't show any half-ribs, and Rozendaal's 17 (here and absolutely gorgeous) does. Looks like the structure was different.

abufletcher · 22 April 2005, 07:25 PM

I'm not familiar with the Macchi drawings of the Nieuport 11. Where are these from?

And yes the Nieuport 17 palns are gorgeous. These are the ones in the back of the datafile. Plans this attractive are a work of art in their own right. It's painful to think that they might contain errors!

I'm assuming BTW, that these are the plans that Mark Miller used for his 3-D Nieuport 17.