Albatros D.V.a, or Pfalz D.III.a?

Welcome fellow Forumites!

On the Forum, it's great to see so much debate regarding the Albatros D.V.a and the Pfalz D.III.a. What I don't understand is, if the Alb. D.V.a was structurally weak regarding its lower wings, and in a prolonged dive was prone to failure, how on earth did the flyers attack an enemy: surely this was one of the most common manouvers? If this aircraft was that bad, surely it wouldn't have been allowed in service? Does anybody know how steep a dive this plane could cope with?

Regarding the Pfalz D.III.a, this also had a bad reputation, but I don't feel that this was deserved; certainly they were not as fast as the Alb. D.V.a, nor had they the altitude performance of the Fokker D.VII. Nevertheless, as we all know on this Forum, it was a great plane and it was certainly not poorly-built. I often feel, especially with fighters produced later in the War, that the pilots wanted to upgrade to planes such as the Fokker D.VII, and so complained to High Command unnecessarily!

To end on a whimsical note, my favourite will always be the Alb. D.V.a! Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment! Hope to hear from you soon,

Best Wishes, kenderoz. *;D

[Kirk]

Yeah, it's interesting why certain aircraft get the repuations they have. If the Pfalz DIIIa had been introduced a few months earlier it may have been looked on in a totally different light. In a war that went from Fokker EIII's in 1915 to Junkers DI's three years later, timing was everything.

[leo]

The various Abatri, DI, DII, DIII, DV, and DVa are certainly pleasing to look at. Peter Fedders believes they are responsible for the destruction of more enemy planes than any other in WWI. The Pfalz DIII ans DIII a were also beutiful. I always suspected that they were better than the popular reputation they carry,

What I don't understand is, if the Alb. D.V.a was structurally weak regarding its lower wings, and in a prolonged dive was prone to failure, how on earth did the flyers attack an enemy: surely this was one of the most common manouvers?

I believe that, in WWI at least, prolonged diving (at steep angles) was more often used in escape than in attack. As for how the D-V made it into service, it's possible the structural weaknesses hadn't been adequately explored before the machine was rushed into service. There was a desperate need for a replacement for the D-III and time was short.

It's interesting to speculate on which would have been the worse course of action: careful testing to ensure that the machine was safe; or rapid deployment to meet immediate needs. Take the SE-5, for example: it first flew in the latter part of 1916, and could have been in service by spring 1917 (certainly, I think, in time for Bloody April). But in January 1917 one of the prototypes broke up in the air, killing Frank Goodden (the test pilot who most credit with initiating the project). The SE-5 program immediately halted in order to research the cause of the crash, and as a result the SE-5 didn't go into service until early summer 1917. Would more pilots have died in SE-5 accidents because the wings weren't redesigned than actually did die because they fought in obsolete aircraft? Who knows?

[Dan_San_Abbott]

kenderoz:
If you will check the performance of the Alb. D.V? D.Va and the Pfalz D.III/D.IIIa you will find the performance is pretty much the same in regards to maximum airspeed. In fact all four were 165 km/hr @ 1000m. In rates of climb the two Pfalz machines were slightly quicker.
All used the same Mercedes engines, D.IIIaü and the late production Alb. D.Va and Pfalz D.IIIa had installed the 200 ps Mercedes D.IIIaüv engine.
The Alb.D.V and D.Va wing problem was never fully resolved and this problem continued to to the end of the war. In very hard landings the rear fuselage would fail aft of the cockpit and the original D.III fuselage and the redesigned D.IIIa fuselage. Pfalz changed more than the location of the machine guns.
I don't really know if there was much difference in the handling of the Albatros and Pfalz machines that would be note worthy.
The Albatros D.Va production was superceded by the Fok. D.VII (Alb) and Fok. D.VII(OAW), Albatros did not have an acceptable replacement for the Alb.D.Va. However, Pfalz produced the the Pfalz D.VIII, Pfalz D.XII and the Pfaz D.XV at athe end of the war.
I frankly think the Pfalz D.IIIand D.IIIa were the better machines.
The four machines continued in service right to the end of the war.
Michael Skeet:
If you check you will find that 56 Squadron(S.E.5) arrived in France on 7 April 1917and became immediately operational. however during April 1917 they were restricted from crossing the lines. They did not want any of these new machines from falling into German Hands.
Blue skies,
Dan-San

[Romani]

An analogy can be drawn with Japanese fighters of WWII. The Albatros DIII is a very similar case to the Zero, or the Bf 109, at its peak it was considerably ahead of its opponents, but had already reached the peak of its development potential, and as it happened again in WWII, the Germans failed to keep up with the technology race.

>What I don't understand is, if the Alb. D.V.a was structurally >weak regarding its lower wings,

This was a problem inherent to the sesquiplane configuration, as discussed some months ago in this forum. The Albatros DIII suffered from this, and the DVa was structurally strengthtened to deal with this.
Wing failure in the DV seems to have been caused as much by shoddy workmanship as by the structural problems of the lower wing. This was a recurring problem on all sides during the war.
The Germans corrected this with a reinforced wing structure and some changes to the V strut, and additional bracing wire.
However, the problem couldn't be fully overcome, with the result that the Albatros couldn't dive *safely* as steeply as the SE5a or the Spad XIII.
But my opinion is that this reputation of wing failure is somewhat exagerated. The main problem was not wing weakness under some circumstances, but that pilot 's confidence in their machines was shaken.

I believe that the DVa was indeed a improvement over the DIII in regards to this question, that is, being somewhat safer to dive with. To fully know the extent and seriousness of this problem you'd have to check the record of the DIII and the Nieuport 17. It doesn't seem to have hampered much their reputation as outstanding machines.

From the various sources I have read, it seems the Albatros DVa was nearly identical to the Albatros DIII, mainly because the German engineers failed to produce a better engine.

The small increment in horsepower ( about 10 HP) was offset by the weight penalty of the structural reinforcements ( about 50 kg) and the increased drag from the additional bracing wires. However, there was an improvement in ceiling (cannot recall right now how much, sorry)

All things considered, everything indicates the DVa had some improvements over the DIII, otherwise, it wouldn't have replaced it.

There are two issues that are undecided.

It's unclear if the Albatros DVa retained the tight turning ability of the DIII. What was remarkable about the DIII is that it achieved the same maneuverablity of the Nieuport 17. Maybe the 50 kg increment was enough to tip the balance, maybe not.

McCudden after evaluating a captured Albatros ( I think it was a Dva, but I'm not sure ) found it very hard on the controls, something surprising, considering that was one of the flaws the Pfalz DIII was noted for. But he also wondered how the Germans could fly it so well.

As is mentioned in current threads, late war DVas may have had somehwat more powerful engines that could have put their max level speed in the 180-190 km/h range. But that's just my guess.

I agree that the Albatros had become inferior to its competitors by 1918, but that it's bad reputation owes more to the downgrading the defeated side always suffers in accounts after war, and more to the decline of the overall quality of German pilots in the last stages of the war. Having the advantages of numbers and better aircraft, Allied novice pilots had higher chances of surviving and learning to use their plane to its full potential than German rookies. However, an Albatros in the hands of a experienced pilot would still be dangerous, no matter its technical inferiority.

It must be remembered that if the Albatros and the Pfalz (specially) came to be regarded as "easy meat" by Allied airmen it whas mainly because they were assigned to greeen pilots as newer machines became available.

When I have the time and the net access, I'll write my thoughts on the Pfalz

Bravo!!!

You hit the nail on the head, Romani!

JASTA75

[Dan_San_Abbott]

Romani:
* *I would like to know the source of the information about "shoddy workmanship at Albatros". *I will not accept ,"I read it somewhere." The actual source. In all my research, I have never read anything that even hinted at poor workmanship at Albatros or OAW! The problem was a design problem, period! The wing attachment fittings at the fuselage and the "V" strut attachment on the lower wing main spar. *The problem was the engineers did not understand that in a dive, caused the center of pressure to shift to the rear, and as a result, caused the lower wing to rotate about the main spar resulting in the failure of the fuselage and the V strut attachments. *Remember, at this point in time, aviation was 13 years old, and military aviation 2 years old!
* *If you will check the threads on the Mercedes D.III engine you will find Daimler-Mercedes had improved the engines considerably from the 170 ps D.IIIa that was installed in the Alb. D.III.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Bluer skies,
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Dan-San
* *
* *

Hi everyone,

I would like to elaborate further on the aerodynamic improvements of the Albatros DV/DVa over the Albatros DIII. Although it is common knowledge that there was only a modest performance gain with the introduction of the DV, it must be stated that there were considerable improvements made to the structure of the aircraft:
1) A completely oval cross-sectioned fuselage of better aerodynamic shape. The frontal area was reduced from the flat-sided fuselage of the DIII.
2) The gap between the wings were reduced by 4.75". This not only gave better vision over the top wing but also improved aerodyamics, as it reduced both bracing wire and strut lengths, thus reduce interplane drag.
3) An airfoil shaped fairing was placed over the axal bar, thus reducing air turbulance in that area. It also is reputed to have conteracted the weight of the entire undercarriage assembly.
4)A different method of wire bracing of the undercarriage reduced the length of the external wires.
5) More powerful engine of 170 hp. (6% increase)

These modifications did result in a slightly greater speed (117mph as opposed to 109mph). When the airframe was strengthened and extra bracing wires were added to the apex of the vee-strut to the center of the top wing overhang, drag and weight was increased, but by this time, the 180hp engine was available, so performance for the most part was retained.

I worked out the zero-lift drag coefficient, using the same formulas found on the NASA website mentioned in the recent Fokker Dr1 thread, for the Albatros DVa. I found that it had about a 4% improvement in overall aerodynamic cleanliness (0.0448 for the DVa and 0.0465 for the DIII). This would account for the higher speed of the DVa.

One important aspect of aerodynamic drag in WW1 aircraft is the bracing wires. British aircraft used "RAF wire" which had a airfoil cross-section. This was a considerable improvement over the round wires found on french and German planes. It reduced interplane drag. This is one of the main reasons why the Camel, athough a sqaut, flat-nosed aircraft, has a drag coefficient of only 0.0378, about 18% better then the DVa.

Dan, you asked if any of us could give you a souce about poor quality at Albatros Werke. If you look in "Albatros Fighter of World War 1" by Peter L. Grey, it states on the page describing the DV that "It was then additionally found that a weakness in the lower wing, first discoverd in the DIII, still persisted. This was a vibration problem and although the wing had already been strenghthed (in the DIII) failure still occured. , which resulted in the wing beginning to twist about its single spar during a prolonged dive, with its attendant build up in speed."

Sorry for the lengthy post, I thought that these points were overlokked when we discuss the differences between the Albatros DVa and DIII. 8) 8) 8)

Regards,

JASTA75

When I tried to highlight a part of the quote fron the source book, it didn't do it correctly. Insert were the [B] [B] is:

"This may have been attributable to poor quality strut fittings and weak wing/fuselage attachent bolts"

Thanks,

JASTA75