WWI Airplane Info

[Chill31]

Slowly, I am getting to know more and more people who are flying WWI replicas throughout the world.  It is wonderful to hear their perspectives on flying various aircraft, so I thought I would share with you some of the things I've learned.  I've shared some stuff in other threads, and if I can remember it all, I will consolidate it here.  If you have info, please share it here as well!

 

On flying the Pup compared to the Fokker Dr.I

 

"The pup is more harmonized than the Dr.1 and doesn’t suffer quite as much adverse yaw."

 

Nieuport 11

 

"N.XI has very heavy controls compared to the Triplanes. When you do a wing over, it requires a large forward stick force to get the nose down again. The ailerons are very heavy, it’s actually hard to get full deflection when you're flying with one hand on the stick."

 

On flying the Pup

 

"I find the biggest thing with them is that there is a bit of forward stick force required for straight and level, the engineer is going to add some springs onto the control column so it’s not so heavy, but the controls are far far more harmonized than that of the Nieuport XI....really isn’t that pleasant"

 

"Same with the pups, even though they are all built exactly to the drawings. They have slight variation [between each plane] and engines too, we have 4 80hp LeRhones that we operate and they are all slightly different."

I find this to be the most illuminating comment since we struggle often to find "accurate" data for WWI aircraft.  

 

"I haven’t tried the max S/L speed yet but it does about 85mph at 1050rpm.  When we were flying with the camel we were going 1200rpm and about 110mph down hill, and the camel (160 Gnome powered) was pulling away..

 

On flying the BE2

 

"The BE2’s are stunningly brilliant on a lovely evening they are like giant kites, the controls are quite heavy but effective.  Like moving a barge around the air. I've flown the Early BE2c with the 70hp Reault engine and that’s probably the sweetest and it’s the lightest all round. The late C, E and original F are also lovely but slightly heavier on the controls."

 

On WWI engines

 

"The differences in all the 80hp LeRhones is amazing too. We operate 4 at the moment and they are all a bit different run."  

 

"Talking hours, the Nieuport has the sweetest running 80hp Le Rhone we have and it’s got over 125hrs on it!!! They pull the nose off it every 25hrs to inspect it, but it really is a lovely engine."

 

 "Our triplanes have radial engines but bigger propellers than what you have with the Lycoming. In terms of performance, we have flown our triplanes with a Lycoming once, and it was certainly noticeable the difference in climb performance. The Warner powered aircraft produces more thrust."

 

"The 80hp Le Rhone is probably one of the easiest of the rotaries to operate IF they are set up well. It takes a bit of time operating the engine on the ground to learn what the engine is supposed to sound like and what it sounds like when it’s getting too rich or too lean and what to do about it (that’s the critical part). Almost every time you operate a rotary the Air/Fuel leavers will be at a different ratio, eg when I was flying the pup in the morning, the fuel leaver was leading the air by about 2/3 inch, but in the afternoon the leavers ere next to each other. The 80hp LeRhone is quite a forgiving engine it’s it generally has a wide operating range unlike other rotaries."

 

"That was the first flight I have ever struggled to keep a rotary running well. I could not get it to run well at 1050-1100 rpm, but when I took it up to 1200 rpm it would eventually sort itself out. I suspected it was carb ice, and when we returned from the flight, I opened the hatch on the side of the cowl and put my hand on the intake tubes. They were ice.. so that would explain it."

 

"With the 80hp LeRhone, when they are rich, they are a bit more labored and flat sounding.  When lean, they are very sharp sounding and can backfire. But then when you are on the ground and at a low idle, they can get small exhaust pops when they are too rich."

[Chill31]

This info is from my Clerget engine manual...

 

 

[AndyJWest]

Interesting stuff, though I'm not sure about this: "That a head wind will frequently give another 20 r.p.m. is common knowledge"? On the ground, quite possibly. If they mean in the air, I can only assume that the laws of physics have been revised since that was written. 

[Chill31]

1 hour ago, AndyJWest said:

Interesting stuff, though I'm not sure about this: "That a head wind will frequently give another 20 r.p.m. is common knowledge"? On the ground, quite possibly. If they mean in the air, I can only assume that the laws of physics have been revised since that was written. 

Haha, I thought the same thing.  They are definitely referring to ground runs when factoring in wind.  The next page explained it further...

[BMA_Hellbender]

To be fair you could theoretically experience this because of inertia during a microburst.

 

You also probably don’t want to be flying your WWI triplane under an active thunderstorm.