So, according to these German Evaluations....

The SE5 is equal in maneuverability to the Pfalz D3
...but then so is the Camel?

...me thinks these German Evaluators had no idea how to fly a camel.

Of maybe it's from the Pfalz company and they're pitching the D3...I dunno'...but it don't feel right (granted I have limited knowledge)
Or maybe "Maneuverability" is much too vague to mean much.


...interesting indeed. I'd need some corroboration with this for sure.

After years of FW190 use i have to ask, what's a throttle? Must be that thing i set to max non-overheat settings and keep there until i need to land. No such thing as too much speed, unless the wings start departing the airframe that is

The steepest sustained climb angle your aircraft can achieve occurs at only one speed.... Your Max angle climb speed. Now (in simple terms) that speed occurs at that point in the flight envelope were the maximum excess of Thrust over Drag occurs.

Nice, thanks Ivank

All these flight tests then, the pilots know the Max angle and keep that angle in the climb. Earlier test pilots will have found the magic angle by experience. And an inclinometer yes

There's that story about a takeoff angle being painted on an airfield building, Plimsoll line type of thing, Spitfires I think. In training, they were told to takeoff matching that angle and no German painters and decorators were allowed on that airfield I bet

Ming

"All these flight tests then, the pilots know the Max angle and keep that angle in the climb. Earlier test pilots will have found the magic angle by experience. And an inclinometer yes"

Actually the Boffins will have calculated the value to a pretty accurate value before the first flight. Its derived from Drag and Power curves. Test flights then verify or fine tune the numbers.
They are empirical performance numbers that should be known by the pilot. Of course they are affected by weight as well.

Thanks for taking a bite at this Brian.

Maneuverability can mean so many things. It can mean tightness of the turning circle, or responsiveness to control inputs, or combinations of things like rolling rate, slippage, and the ability to perform manuevers quickly and cleanly (by an average pilot).

Maneuverability also changes with airspeed, with turning radius being tighter at slower airspeeds, and control response being quicker at higher speeds (until controls start to stiffen).

So for example, it might be understood why the DH 2 would be considered superior in maneuverability to the Pfalz D.III, if the Pfalz were mixing it up with this British fighter. Of course at comparable altitudes, the Pfalz D.III could fly on average 25 mph faster than a DH 2.

I've always taken the advice from the guys that actually did the dogfighting; keep the gas at 100% and trade altitude for speed when slowing down or running away.

Hi Fly,

Just to clarify, I mean corroboration in a sence of performance data. As I am not questioning the validity that this may be an "official" record of German comparisons from the period.

But interesting is quite corrrect, and thought provoking as well. The point I made out earlier about the se5 being equal, yet so is the camel would suggest that the camel and se5 are also therefor equal. Which, I think you would agree, is not entirely accurate. So then, that leads us to ponder why the authors would consider it accurate.

This makes me believe that it just may be from the Pfalz company, and in order to "fudge" their numbers to make this an accurate document, they assign a sort of vague "range" to their maneuvering column.

For instance. Let's use your example --

Pfalz D3 has a minimum turn radius of X feet.

Perhaps they said if other aircraft are within, say 25% of X, we'll just call it equal. This could help explain all the "equal" conclusions they came up with, and yet still making it "accurate".
If the Camel turned at .76X and the Se5 turned at 1.24X - they would still be "equal". Yet comparisons between the se5 and camel would not look so "out-of-whack".

I think this conjecture would help explain this document.

Your thoughts?

- Brian

Brian, I'd guess the charts express comparisons in relative terms.

Coincidentally, that new book by Peter Kilduff on Carl Degelow I've mentioned on the forum, has an interesting paragraph that's right in line with our discussion here:

New Pfalz D.III Fighters Arrive
Structural problems with the Albatros D.III and its successor, the D.V, left Jagdstaffel leaders hoping for a new aeroplane that would offer good performance and safety for their pilots. Initially, the Pfalz Flugzeugwerke in Speyer seemed to have a new fighter that filled the bill. It was a sleek streamlined aircraft and, as the late Peter Grosz noted: "There is little doubt that the Pfalz D.III was a more rugged construction than its Albatros counterpart and, like most German aircraft, the workmanship where it counted was of high quality...[and] the Pfalz D.III was regarded as equal to the Sopwith Camel [probably the most over-rated and accident-prone fighter in the Allied inventory] and surprisingly only the [Airco] D.H.5 was superior [to the Pflaz D.III] in speed, climb rate and manoeuvrability."

(brackets added in the text by Peter Kilduff)

So much of getting the best out of an aircraft depended on the pilots skill with it. No doubt the British survivors of Camel training were likely of a high order, or extremely lucky to have mastered the aircraft without injury or worse. The question in these test is whether the German test pilot(s) were as proficient flying the Allied aircraft types in these test dogfights, or whether the Pfalz D.III was just easier to be proficient with, compared to likes of something like a Sopwith Camel.

FR, I hear what you're saying. And since we're so off-topic, we can take this to PM if you like. It certainly is a conversation I find interesting!

Or, we can end this with my request for you to ponder this idea:

If the Pfalz D.III was as good as you/they are suggesting, why then did it not have a larger impact? Considering how well it supposedly "out performed" other allied aircraft. Just a thought.

<S!>

Brian,

The Pfalz didn't out perform its contemporary opponents (like the SE5a, Camel, and Spad XIII), and most of the other captured aircraft listed above had largely been withdrawn from front-line service by the time the Pfalz D.III made it to the front.

The Pfalz D.III, and the improved D.IIIa soldier on as viable German fighters, from late 1917-18, often the equal, but becoming increasing out-dated as had the Camel by the end of the war.