Questions about world war 1 airplanes

[Quintin]

As a kid growing up, I built ww1 airplanes and never thought about the technical aspects. As I an adult building models, I have a ton of questions.

1. How much engine oil did they hold. Obviously depends on the engine but say the Mercades on the LVG. Someone posted earlier these exposed engine tops slung oil everywhere. Can that be true? While I am sure it threw some, wouldn't it have depleted the engine oil? My dad was a mechanic and I grew up in garage in the 70's and early 80's. The cars back then, when you took the valve cover off did indeed throw oil everywhere and it would deplete the oil supply given enough time.

2, How much fuel did they hold and what was their flying range? How did any dog fights or maneuvering effect this? Also, the altitude must have effected it.

3. Did these wooded framed, fabric covered planes really have all these wild dogfights and aacrobatics? I've read the accounts of pilots like Richtofen and Luke shooting down multiple aircraft on a single mission. Just what really was the ability of these machines to handle this type of stress that must have occurred to them on a daily basis without major structural repairs?

4. How much ammo did they carry? Both the forward firing gun and the observers gun. Just how many rounds did those drums hold? I was trying to count them the other day from a picture of a Lewis gun. I did not come up with very many rounds. Ammo can be quite heavy.

5. How did the observer keep from falling out of the dang thing?

6. What percent of planes were shot down by injury/death to the pilot as opposed to damage to mechanical parts of the plane?

7. How did they keep form getting lost? I know they had compasses and while it seems simple, you fly east to get to the front and west to get home but I would assume in the process of flying, wind currents, maneuvering, etc they could drift/fly well away from their normal return course. Just flying west would get you to your own lines but then you got to land the darn thing somewhere before fule runs out.

Just some questions.

TIA.

Quintin

[Wienne]

1. depends, rotaries threw out all of their oil (in fact they had no carter to hold the oil.) So they had an oil and fuel tank, which had to be filled after each flight. In-line engines had their oil topped-up after the flight and mostly had an oil tank too. In fact same goes for WW2 planes too: The Merlins of Spitfire fame were notorious for leaking oil. In fact when you look at the long range photo recon spits you'll notice they have a deeper 'chin'. That's because they also needed a larger oil-tank to go with the extra endurance. An oil tank placed just below the engine.

2. depends on the type. Camel: 2.5 hrs, Brisfit 3 hrs for instance.

3. Yes. It's all in the construction. In fact most of the strength comes for a large part from the rigging. And if you look the rigging forms always triangles. Not a coincidence: the triangle is the strongest form in nature. BTW, modern planes may look very solid, but are very light compared to their volume!

4. see here (http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/other-wwi-aviation/49045-how-many-rounds-did-they-have.html)

5. They had belts, but also used short lifelines, but most of the time they simply hanged on... Regarding the Fe2 they are no reports of the pilot coming back w/o his observer/gunner. And that must have been the most dangerous plane for the observer, sometimes standing on the top of the nacelle to fire backwards. There are reports of the observer/gunner coming back with a dead/wounded pilot...

6. Gee, don't know, also hard to asses I guess. Combatants preferred shooting the pilot or using the pilot or observer as an aiming point. Kind of a merciful quick death (or a quick victory) in the first place or to silence the defensive fire in the second place. Though there are reports of pilots that liked seeing an enemy going down in a flamer... Cruelness is a human trait after all... I would guess the majority would be from personally inflicted wounds.

7. Pilotage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilotage), dead reckoning (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_reckoning) and compass heading (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Course_(navigation)).

[Old Man]

A few answers, Sir, at least partial ones.

Oil supply varied by type, of course, but several gallons' worth is typical: the Albatross D-type fighters carried eleven or twelve liters, the S.E. 5a about four gallons. I suspect larger motors would have required more oil.

Rotary motors went through their entire oil supply in a flight, expending it as they expended fuel, since all oil pumped into the motor went out with the exhaust.

Fuel load, again, varied greatly. The S.E. 5a carried thirty-five Imperial gallons, enough for an endurance of three and a half to four hours aloft. German fighters were generally designed with much less fuel capacity, sufficient for two hours, or even just one and a half hours. French fighters ranged in between, with two and half hours being typical. Two-seat machines generally had greater endurance, on all sides, ranging from three and a half hours to five hours.

Aeroplanes were indeed often flung about in combat and stressed badly. 'Deterioration' was a strike off charge category in the R.F.C., and the entry for it generally exceeded that for lost to enemy action. One of the major tasks of ground crew was checking their machine for damage from the stresses of flying, and keeping it tuned up true to minimize such harm.

Fixed synchronized guns seem generally to have been supplied with four hundred to five hundred rounds. The German observer's gun, the Parabellum, was fed by hundred round lengths of belt on a reel; I do not know how many of these usually were carried. The Allied Lewis was, after 1916, fed with a 'double drum' containing 97 rounds; a fighting machine like a Bristol F2B would usually carry six spare drums, plus one on the gun.

Observers often had a sort of safety belt anchored from their waist to the floor of the cockpit, but not always, and observers were sometimes flung out of the machine during combat manouvers.

I know of no figures relating to causes of machines downed, but 'aim for the pilot, don't put holes in the machine' is pretty much the universal advice of skilled fighter pilots in memoirs and interviews.

Pilots often did get lost, particularly on windy or overcast days, and the errors could be spectacular. Even when equipped with maps, mistakes could easily be made in fitting the ground seen to the picture displayed. Crews flying over a familiar sector, of course, developed an excellent sense of where they were.

[nigelrayner]

3. Did these wooded framed, fabric covered planes really have all these wild dogfights and aacrobatics? I've read the accounts of pilots like Richtofen and Luke shooting down multiple aircraft on a single mission. Just what really was the ability of these machines to handle this type of stress that must have occurred to them on a daily basis without major structural repairs?


They threw them around like crazy, and often the designs could not stand up to some of the stresses. Watch some of the clips from "Hell's Angels", like this one:

YouTube - Hell Angels - Revelation

Many of the planes are actual WWI aircraft, and some of the pilots flew in WWI. I was used to seeing replicas and originals flown gently at airshows, so when I watched this I was amazed at how the pilots threw the planes around. There were a lot of dogfights later in the war (1917/1918) but the most successful pilots "dived and zoomed" ie swooped on their opponents and quickly zoomed away to regain the height advantage.


7. How did they keep form getting lost? I know they had compasses and while it seems simple, you fly east to get to the front and west to get home but I would assume in the process of flying, wind currents, maneuvering, etc they could drift/fly well away from their normal return course. Just flying west would get you to your own lines but then you got to land the darn thing somewhere before fule runs out.


They used maps, compasses and their eyes. Most pilots flew over a relatively small area and would become familiar with the landmarks in their zone of operations, and then use simple navigation (sun, compass) to get back to an area where they recognized the landmarks.

If you want to get a real sense of what air combat was like later in WWI, I recommend you read "Winged Victory" by WV Yeates. This was written by a WWI pilot who was not a high scoring ace, so gives a real sense of what the ordinary airman faced. And that was mainly fear, boredom, disillusionment, heavy drinking and the loss of a lot of friends. Pretty grim account but very realistic and it will answer a lot of your questions. Well worth reading to counterbalance the "romantic" view of WWI air combat that many books tend to create.

Cheers,

Nigel