"Russell Waterson" writes:

That is facinating. You did put some work into this and I appreciate it. It
is very interesting especially when we are trying to get a handle on what it
was like for them. I am not sure but it is a guess any way, but would a
squadron have an aircraft like the camel and have them with different
engines and hence different performances? E.g. one pilot have the Clerget
another the Bentley another the Br1 etc.

That is a good question. Looking through the references I don't see
an answer. According to the records the RNAS ordered mainly Clerget
and BR1 engined Camels. The RFC may have mainly ordered Clerget
engined Camels (this is my inference from the wording and not
reliable). This would suggest that it is possible that they had mixed
engines in the one squadron and indeed flight. If this was the case
there would have been a considerable advantage in the aircraft with
better performance as these numbers suggest a 10% advantage in speed
was possible.

As a pointer in _Five Years in the Royal Flying Corps_ James McCudden
describes how he installed an engine with the high compression pistons
in his SE5a (taking it from 200hp to 220hp or 240hp). Together with
taking great care with his engine he was able to regularly achieve
22,000 ft and was able to catch and shoot down the high flying Rumpler
reconnaisance aircraft. McCudden at least once mentioned that when he
had to use someone elses aircraft the lower performance was obvious.
McCudden was a mechanic by background and this probably helped in
making sure that the engines were kept to the highest standard.

It would make maintainance difficult and formation flying hard. The
idiosyncrasies of of each type would be different so to go from one aircraft
to another would test the skill of a pilot when they had to swap an
aircraft. Does anyone kow much about that?

It would be interesting to have some real information on this. I
would expect that, to a large extent, when flying in formation the
pilots could compensate by the throttle setting, after all when on
patrol they would be flying at considerably less than the maximum
speed and hence it was less of a problem. The maintenance question
could be quite a significant one. However, remember that a lot of
changes in the first world war were ad hoc. Up to 1916 or thereabouts
most squadrons had multiple types of aircraft. The move to
standardisation was probably impeded by the manufacturing limitations.
They may have _preferred_ to have aircraft with the same engine in the
squadron, but had to take what was available. The expansion of the
service may have made it hard to achieve standardisation. Looking at
the references suggests (my inference again) that there was a tendency
to reduce the number of engine types actually used in a given
aircraft. A lot of engines were tested but not actually used in
service. Some hard evidence would be useful.

--
Stephen Harker
School of Physics & Materials Engineering
Monash University http://www.ph.adfa.edu.au/s-harker/
Baloney Baffles brains: Eric Frank Russell