DIIIau engine production started at april 1918 at max 170 engines at that month. You can quess where all went...


HINT: it was not any Cl plane

P.S. Total production of new DIIIau engines was less than production of D.VII/Pfalz D.XII -> Even converted engines were badly need for just those scouts.

There were so many one-offs and five-offs in World War One concerning aircraft configurations can't we just drop the whole issue? It's much more of a joy to fly with this late-war engine.

To throw more fuel on the engine debate: Germans recorded HP as produced at a fixed RPM (I think 1500), not at the point of max HP as was done by the allies and is done today. So when the Germans say they have a 180 HP engine, that may or may not be the max output of the engine.

In the end you have to cut the developers some slack. Even if computers were capable of perfectly simulating flight we still wouldn't get it right, because nobody really knows what "right" is. The technology was very new and things were not standardized. There are no complete sources and no way to go back in time to test all of the different permutations. Presenting new facts for consideration is fine, but we're going to have to live with "close enough".

Of course, there were the, under the Mercedes-license built, non-Mercedes D.III engines.
But there also was an Argus D.III engine being developed alone and not being connected to the Mercedes, and some others like the Benz D.III 180 hp.

"D.III" was just an army designation for an engine suited to fit certain demands, and those demands changed with the years.

The D.III "au" was said to run smooth at 1500 to 1700 rpm, and very rough at lower - like 1300-1400.

All not so easy to model, if you do not have access to knowledge, because it plain does not exist anymore.

This, e.g., is said to be a 200 hp engine. Certainly a D.III, but which ? Huh ?
http://thevintageaviator.co.nz/projects/mercedes-engine/mercedes-engine-restoration

It entered the store without those red rings around the cylinders. From when or which engine type on were those red rings used, and did they paint it on all cylinders, of an engine having six similar cylinders ?

This is said to be a D.IIIa engine:
http://s1011.photobucket.com/albums/af23...fold/?start=all

Notice the red ring, but why only on one cyl. (#1) ?

The pilots in various publications like Zuerl's "Pour le mérite" or Langsdorff's "Flieger am Feind", pilots speak of flying Albatrosses with 200-220 hp ?

I would really like to have a complete history of, say, the Mercedes D.III without "holes" in it, from the first 140 hp D.III on.

Thanks and greetings,
Catfish

How do you know this? Is this just a guess or do you have some evidence?

^
Well he means the D.VIIs, because it is "common knowledge" that the "best" engines only went to the D.VII and the D.XII (what is "best" ? For what role, or operations?). "No Albatros flying in late 1918, and no Entente plane shot down anymore after mid-1918" ? Really ? The above is only an example of what people think, and has not much to do with reality though.
Only an example of how BS spreads: Someone who was not always wrong once said that "the D.III has 160 hp", and anyone who would say that is only true for 1914 would have been instantly flamed. Say something often enough, repeat it and it will become the truth.

Things have been even more difficult, it seems the D.III was not only upgraded in the field, there were also different versions of high- and low compression engines from a certain series or type, and not only from Daimler. Not even Daimler-licensed -built, but different. The BMW and Argus are only 2 examples.
So the Mercedes D.IIIa came as a and au, being used for the same time for different tasks. It also seeems the relatively low-compressing AV came as a AVU variant. I might make sense to believe that a low-flying Schlasta plane against trenches would have probably received the lower-compressing engine, just because it was not needed at the altitude it mostly flew. It developed its 185 hp at up to 1000 meters, and it was not important what it could do at 4000 meters.

But indeed, unless one has not read a lot of books and articles, it is all speculation

+1 this ^^^

"Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful." - George Box

Production numbers have been discussed in the aeredrome forums. And that (170 at max) is what have been researched from original production documents.

production of the Mercedes D.IIIa/D.IIIaü for 1918

January 428 (D.IIIa)
February 328 (D.IIIa)
March 283 (D.IIIa)
April 370 (min.200-D.IIIa/max.170-D.IIIaü)
May 405 (min.110-D.IIIa/max.295-D.IIIaü)
June 413 (min.22-D.IIIa/max.391-D.IIIaü)
July 498 (1-D.IIIa/497-D.IIIaü)
August 495 (D.IIIaü)
September 480 (D.IIIaü)
October 229 (D.IIIaü)
November 100 (D.IIIaü)
December 15 (D.IIIaü)

Total 4044 for 1918, = 1359 D.IIIa motors + 2685 D.IIIaü motors.

http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/aircraft/48085-production-numbers-mercedes-diii-series.html

That's not what I meant.

I meant, how do you know no such engines were assigned to the CL.II?

Because there were not enought DIIIau engines even for scouts that needed them much more. Also there is no single proof that Cl.II ever had DIIIau engine.

Just to keep it in perspective "Only 14 D.VII's were accepted in May with D.IIIaü motors, (from Fokker Schwerin)." (from the link I posted before)