sopwith camel kill/loss ratio

"Russell Waterson" writes:

"Stephen Harker" wrote in message
...
Stephen Harding writes:

Russell Waterson wrote:

There is a book called "Winged Victory" first pubished in 1934 by a
Camel
pilot by V. M. Yeates tells about flying them in battle in 1918. The
camel
was not fast and could not catch anything in a tail chase. The Germans
found
that hit and run tactics were the only way to take them on and have
any
success. They were fine against Dr1 because they were in the same
boat, slow
but manouverable. the camels were used more at mid to low altitude
while
SE5a and Dolphines went performed better higher. [...]

I always thought the Sopwith Camel was pretty fast; 130 mph or so, as
well as
maneuverable. It's generally considered the best Allied fighter of WWI
(I think), although Spad and SE5a have their adherents.

I'll try to look up some numbers tonight (JM Bruce _War Planes of the
First World War_ or the Profile series may cover this), but my memory
of various references matches the comments from "Winged Victory". The
numbers I have in memory for Camels are around 120 mph at sea level,
the SE5a was around 130 to 135 mph at sea level. The Camel
performance was supposed to fall off more rapidly with height. [...]
It is probably true that variations in engine output and
reliability was greater in WW1 than in WW2 due to lower metallurgical
and other quality control, which would further complicate matters.

It needs to be remembered that when the performance figures are
expressed say at max 130 mph that usually means when the aircraft is
new and running well. Most aircraft especially in ww1 would not be
able to go the max speed as they got damaged, worn out, maintainance
not up to scatch etc. It might be said that the Camel went 120 but
in reality it was more like 110 or even less.

That is a given in any aircraft comparison. The recorded comments of
the US naval aviators in late 1944 about the reduced performance of
the old Hellcats being a case in point. Unfortunately most published
figures don't record details of engine and aircraft use for WW1, the
prototype figures being an obvious exception. The original data may
have this, but most of the sources I have looked at don't. That said,
these are some figures for Camels and some comparison aircraft. Some
of these number were clearly `calculator converted' from metric.
There may be enough aircraft to get some idea of trends, but more data
would help.

Max Speed at height Serv Ceil Climb Climb Engine Ref
(mph) (feet) (feet) 10,000 15,000
(m:s) (m:s)

Camel F1 115 6,500 19,000 130hp Clerget [1]
Camel F1 122 SL 24,000 110hp Le Rhone[1]
Camel F1 117 10,000 21,000 150hp BR1 [1]
Camel F1 110 10,000 18,500 100hp Monosoupape[1]
Camel F1 104.5 10,000 18,000 11:45 23:15 130hp Clerget [2]

Some comparison data:

Dolphin 1 121 10,000 20,000 200hp H-S [1]
Dolphin 1 127 10,000 21,000 10:30 19:30 200hp H-S [5]
SE5a 135 SL NA 240hp H-S [1]
SE5a 137 SL NA 200hp Viper [1]
SE5a 126 10,000 17,000 13:15 27:35 200hp H-S [2]
SE5a 120 15,000 19,500 10:50 20:50 200hp Viper [3]
Fokker DVII 117 3,280 19,685 Mercedes [1]
Albatros DV 116 3,280 20,500 Mercedes [1]
Albatros DV 103 NA NA Mercedes [4]
Spad XIII 139 6,500 21,800 220hp H-S [1]

[1] J W R Taylor, Combat Aircraft of the World, Ebury Press and
Michael Joseph, London 1969
[2] J M Bruce, War Planes of the First World War, Fighters Vol 2,
MacDonald, London 1968
[3] The SE5a, Profile 1, Profile Publications, 1971
[4] The Albatros DV, Profile 9, Profile Publications, 1965
[5] The Sopwith Dolphin, Profile 169, Profile Publications, 1967

There is clearly a fairly large variation in performance even with
nominally the same engine. This is not too surprising: in late 1917
who Wolseley had the British licence to manufacture the Hispano-Suiza
had major problems and a lot of their engines were defective, one of
the French suppliers produced engines with defective gears. The
prototype SE5a with a French 200hp Hispano-Suiza recorded considerably
better climbing performance and service ceiling than the one listed
above. This may reflect the engine age/wear or quality control
problems.

In 1918 did not have the testing regime and materials knowledge to
rapidly improve this. A large number of British 1918 designs were
supposed to use the ABC Dragonfly radial ordered off the drawing
board. The Dragonfly proved incurably defective and the designs using
it got nowhere. A couple did appear in modified form later using the
Bristol Jupiter (ex Cosmos Jupiter) the first engine to pass a type
test (20 Hour?) which was introduced following this debacle. Bristols
put a lot of work into design and materials selection to improve
reliability and ease maintenance, this takes time that was not
available in the war.

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