The in-game D7 just doesn't roll the way it should, it wallows and seems to lose aileron effectiveness when it becomes inverted. Granted you should enter any maneuver with energy but I've seen this video here and it seems like the D7 was able to fly at very slow speeds and still have manueverability


Now granted most of the rolls are half rolls and barrel rolls the loops aren't perfectly straight on the exits but it's an old airplane he has too much tied up in it to throw it about but you see it doesn't seem to have any problem low and slow. At about 5:55 in the vid he performs a half loop rolls out and kicks a large amount of rudder to bring it around as I would expect, he is also pushing a noticeable amount of down elevator on his passes over the field to maintain level altitude at speed so obviously it wants to climb which it should because of lift generated by the thick airfoil.

I didn't see him do anything in that video that we can't do in RoF with the D.VII. I just fired up the game to try some of those maneuvers and was able to do so w/o issues. I will say, though, that the D.VII does not have sufficient aileron authority to do rolls and such all by themselves. Not if you want to roll reasonably quickly. You need to add in rudder. But that has been the case with all of these WW1 aircraft.

And you are correct, but as I said he probably doesn't push the plane very hard and at no point in that video does he get high enough to bail out so he has plenty of confidence in the aircraft to do what he is doing, however to point to what Tallman said about it
"Levelling out at 3,000 feet, the D.VII indicates 110 mph, and trues out at 118mph. Stalls are straightforward and hang on until 49 mph on the clock and then fall straight ahead. Loops cover about 800 feet of sky, and when started at 120 mph carry through beautifully, with no tendency to fall out at the top. Strangely, to the vertical point, the ailerons of the D.VII are all anyone could ask for. Following through the inverted phase, the roll slows down. A full slow roll is on the order of nine seconds. But make no mistake; this aircraft is not a slouch. If you want to hustle through rolls it will whip from side to side faster than almost any other WWI aircraft. Changes of direction, either vertically or horizontally, as performed with ease." this doesn't describe, or at least as I perceive it, the DVII we have unless this is the "F" model then I guess I have to buy it to find out. I don't see why Tallman would exaggerate, if that were the case so what am I doing wrong if the plane is correct, having sufficient airspeed I should be able to initiate an aileron roll while giving it Elevator and Rudder input to both assist and to maintain directional stability. For me it seems to quit rolling once inverted and fall out.

I think that is the point of this thread. Early in the war one banked with rudder and used ailerons for fine tuning. That remained more or less true throughout the war - of course becoming less the case as aircraft improved. One of the D.VII's defining characteristics was its aileron response. I have heard it said that the D.VII was the first plane to truly achieve modern levels of response from aileron input alone.

Don't forget the the air itself isn't scaled down so they are not exactly the same, as far as I know

Yes, except maybe the rocking of the wings the Fokker DVII does at 0:40 ?

Wow, look at those Spandaus vibrate and bend as he fires! Were those authentic guns?

You do know that the physics are completely different at those scales? You could make a perfect replica and it would fly completely differently due to the change in air-pressure/surface area. This is ignoring the fact that the model kits have actuators rather than human limbs powering the controls, excessive thrust/weight ratios etc. etc.

Well, for the most part the machine guns are mounted to the airframe at the butt or receiver end which leaves the barrels unsupported. Depending on the plane,some of the guns did have support out near the muzzle.

These guns don't have any form of muzzle brake and if you've ever fired a 30 caliber machinegun, they jump around alot! What you see mounted on the ends of the barrels are flash hiders, NOT muzzle brakes. These guns where lightened to save weight for mounting on aircraft and that'll make 'em jump around even more! I'd imagine that as lightly constructed as these planes are, they had a pretty strong shake when the guns fired.

Think back to the cockpit sequences of the pilots firing their guns in "The Blue Max"...looked EXACTLY the same--based on the scene filmed. Sometimes they use "gas" guns that aren't "real" so they get the fire at the muzzle but no gun or camera shake.

My guess is, since Howard Hughes was a stickler for detail (!), that those real DVII's were firing blanks. Blanks still kick.

Yes, it is quite enlightening to see the guns recoil -- puts bullet 'dispersion' into some kind of focus, eh?
Now why do others bury their heads when the topic of dispersion comes up???