Why a triplane?

On Feb 3, 6:51 am, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
FledgeIII wrote :

On Feb 2, 7:41 pm, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
FledgeIII wrote
innews:7921eb53-dcc7-4bce-984a-





om:

On Feb 2, 4:38 pm, Ron Wanttaja wrote:
On Sat, 2 Feb 2008 09:44:56 +0000 (UTC), Bertie the Bunyip
wrote:

Ron Wanttaja wrote in
:

One would have thought the Fokker D-6 (essentially a biplane
DR-1) would have quickly superseded it, then. But I suppose
Fokker finally getting the Mercedes engine let him jump to the
bigger D-7.

I don't think the D-6 was quite as good as the Albatros, but it
was probably better than the Triplane in most ways. I think the
Triplane had it;s limited success as a sort of accident. Fokker
was fond of just grabbing bits they had developed and grafting
them to other bits and then lengthening this, shortening that
until he came up with something that worked.

I heard once that Tony Fokker (a Dutch national) was somehow under
suspicion by the German government, and the military had refused
to give him access to the newest engines...so he designed the best
fighters he could around an old one until the Germans changed
their minds.

I always loved the japanese kite face on Voss's airplane.

Back in the '60s, DC Comics had a series about a German WWI pilot
called "Enemy Ace," which was based on Richtofen. But "Hans Von
Hammer's" all-red triplane featured Voss' kite face, as shown on
the current image on my Fly Baby's baggage door:

http://www.bowersflybaby.com/pix/enemy%20ace.jpg

One last bit of DR1 lore is that Manfred von Richtofen had four
of them. He also preferred the French Gnome engine over the
Oberursel whaich was basically a copy of the Gnome anyway. His
airplanes were all equipped with Gnomes captured form downed
airplanes.

Well, uhhh, maybe. I'd heard that Oberursel sometimes put Gnome
data plates on its engines, with an additional plate explaining it
was a "captured" engine. Even in the middle of a war, they were
worried about licensing laws....

Thanks for the info about von Richtofen's four DR-1s. Back as a
kid building models, I noticed that none of the sources seemed to
agree as to whether his machine was all-red or otherwise. Having
more than one airplane would explain it....

Ron Wanttaja

In one out of the way corner in the WWI section of the USAF Museum,
there's a couple-inch square swatch of doped fabric in a frame,
purported to be from the DR.I Richtofen died in.

It's actually kind of a magenta color, but there's certain to be
some fading involved...

Yeah, it was ripped to shreds by souvenier hunters. Some if it is in
Canada in a museum there including the seat.
One of his tripes was preserved and displayed in a museum in germany,
but it was destroyed in a bombing raid during the war.

Bertie

I also seem to recall reading someplace or other that one of - if not
primary - motivations with tripes was to decrease span without
sacrificing wing area - shortening the moments to increase roll and
yaw rates.

Yeah, that would be one of the reasons. Bipes are the same lots of wing
area but you're affecting a smaller body of air. If you look at an
airplane nose on and draw a circel around it which just touches the
wingtips, you have a rough idea of the volume of air influenced by the
airplane as it flies along. A bipe or tripe will affect a smaller area.
It's morre compicated than that, of course, but it's a good ROT

Kind of squares with stories of how guys like Voss flew the thing -
bat**** crazy; flat turns, snap rolls, you name it.

Yeah I read a report on a modern one years ago and apparently it's yaw
behaviour is very strange indeed. He said it was nearly impossible to
tell if you were skidding as the thing would just fly along with the
wings level and the ailerons neutral and going mare sideways than
straight ahead. You had to be on the rudder all the time. Vigorous
application of the rudder would initiate mad flat turns of ridiculously
small radius,whihc apparently made the thing a very good gun platform.
It must have been a tremedous advantage in surprise terms alone.



Another thing I recall reading was that it offered some advantages in
visibility - high aspect ratio (narrow chord)/low stagger wings, the
middle wing aligned right on line of sight where it obscured the least
lateral vision.

Then again, I could be all wt on that...

As Dudley said, I believe you're completely blind on landing, but all
the bipes of tha era had vis issues. There were some weird experiments n
that direction as well. The DH5 used negative stagger and had the
cockpit in front of the wings, for instance. The Sopwith Dolphin had a
weird aproach that's hard to describe.

Bertie



Yeah I read a report on a modern one years ago and apparently it's yaw
behaviour is very strange indeed. He said it was nearly impossible to
tell if you were skidding as the thing would just fly along with the
wings level and the ailerons neutral and going mare sideways than
straight ahead. You had to be on the rudder all the time. Vigorous
application of the rudder would initiate mad flat turns of ridiculously
small radius,whihc apparently made the thing a very good gun platform.
It must have been a tremedous advantage in surprise terms alone.

Wouldn't be surprised if that's the reason pictures from the time -
and later on in movies like The Blue Max show DR.Is with streamers
trailing from the interplanes; most likely as big 'ole honkin' yaw
strings...

Good point on the early D.VII fuselage; was thinking about that
myself. IIRC, the prototype had the same small "comma shaped" rudder
stab as the DR.I; they added the forward strake/fin when they
lengthened the fuselage.