LOL!

Rebutts or not, his outa know better! :rolleyes:

I've been looking for info on the Hisso engines.
As yet I have found nothing that says they were so unreliable.

Maybe when first designed they were. But those bugs must of been worked out.

Far more powerful and reliable than the German rotaries, ot the French ones as well.

IIRC, though some rotary engines were 200hp plus, like the Snipe's, I think the upper practicle limit was 160.

To a large extent the Hisso's reliability depended on who manufactured it, with quality of build differing widely between contractors.

I know Brooks wasn't too impressed with them at first. He stated that the XIIIs were not put together too well. They arrived with gas tank leaks, broken cables, missing bolts, etc.

He does state that they were made mostly by the old and young as the cream of the crop was in the army. So it that would be a factor as well.

I, too, want to see engine management and reliability included in the sim (note I don't call it "game").

Engines that start missing and losing power, due to flying through cloud or oiling up of the sparkplugs. The occasional failure of some component stopping the engine completely.
Breaking the fuel pump due to excessive speed in a dive and having to pump fuel or switch to the gravity tank.

Early Hispano-Suiza engines, as fitted in the SE5, should have reliability problems, but the biggest problem appears to have been supply, due to quality control at the engine factories being poor, so that shoddily constructed engines were delivered to the aircraft plants. *Most* of these would have been weeded out before being installed in the airframe. The principle issue with the last batch fitted to the first SE5as, was reduction gear failure. The Wolseley Viper was built as a direct drive version, removing the issue.
( Munson - World Aircraft Fighters 1914-1919 Blandford Press ISBN 0 7137 0483 7 )

vH - You forgot to include the German rotaries in the above list.
Also I was intrigued about your comment regarding the DH2 "catching on fire for no reason" and have done some pretty extensive digging around for more data on this. I can find no reference to fire being a particular hazard in a DH2, but lots of mention of the Gnome Monosoupape engine throwing cylinders. Possibly the engine used to overheat somewhat due to the partial blanking of the airflow around it by the fuselage, but this should just result in power loss. The principle problem with the DH2, apart from the Gnome engine, was it's unforgiving flight characteristics at the edge of the envelope.
I note the comment about the DH2 catching fire has expanded to include the FE2 as well. I find this very surprising, as the FE2 had a different manufacturer, engine and fuel tank positions. The only similarity between the DH2 and FE2 is the pusher layout. The FE2 had good flight characteristics and was a very forgiving aircraft.
Please could you give me the reference you have for the DH2 fire problem, as I want to look into this further.

Reinforcing Suncream's Hisso information above, is this from the book Echoes Of Eagles, by Charles Wolley with Bill Crawford:

The Engineering Department had to deal with multiple mechanical difficulties. In the 94th alone, the ground crews were faced with 124 major mechanical problems between July 18 and the end of the month on these brand-new airplanes. The Spads had problems with overheating, leaking oil pipes, faulty oil pumps, faulty carburetors, faulty magnetos, faulty gas tanks, nonfunctioning gauges, poorly designed reduction gearing, and on more than one occasion, completely worthless engines that had to be totally replaced. Major Harold E. Hartney, who became the Commander of the First Pursuit Group in August, described the new Spad aircraft as "a catastrophe."

.....and this:

One of the causes of Coolidge's continuing mechanical problems was the Spad's Hispano-Suiza engine and its propeller reduction gearing. Aeronautical engineers had discovered that propellers, when turned too rapidly, actually lose effectiveness. To overcome this, engine designers placed a gearing system between the en- gine and the propeller that reduced the propeller's revolutions and maximized its power. The reduction gearing, unfortunately, caused many water-cooled engines to vibrate excessively. The engine's radiator was bolted directly to the front of the fuselage, and the vibration quickly caused leaks at attachment points on the pipes that circulated the cooling fluids. Stronger radiators mounted to the fuselage with flexible rubber mounts quickly solved this particular problem.

Hmmmmmmmm........Quality and Immersion............

Yeah, I'd be willing to give up a little on the immersion side of experience for a bit more quality sometimes.

Design always involves compromise.

The Clerget 130hp engine would overheat,( see my engines thread ).

Modelling the chance of an engine breakdown or misfire what have you is an interesting idea.

But I guarantee you, it will get alot of complaints. The old playability vs realism.

Sunscream, did you really expect any German engine on that list

This is based on recollection, but I seem to remember that the "incinerator" part of the DH2's nickname came from the fuel tank arrangement. Leaking or punctured fuel tanks tended to drip onto the hot engine, with very bad results.

The DH2's reputation is only bad because it was kept in service too long. It was a better plane than the Eindecker, but hopelessly outclassed by the advent of the Albatros.

@Ironhand:
The obdurator ring you mention regarding the Clerget in your other thread was not unique to the Clerget, it was a crucial part of any rotary engine. The problem with the German rotaries that were produced or developed from their original Gnome licence was the engineers were unaware of the significance of the special materials an obdurator ring had to be made of, hence the very poor showing of German built rotaries, which overheated and lost power like fury.

The lack of German engines on the list I expected. I don't know why, but I did.

@PatWilson:
Thanks for the insight on the DH2. I suspected the position of the gravity tank would have something to do with it. Not so sure about the FE, though.

I just learn more and more. Thanks guys.

pat is correct, the fuel tank configuration is to blame for the "fire hazard" tag the dh2 had...it didnt catch fire on its own.
but obviously if punctured the fuel would be sucked all over the engine.

re8 was the same but for a different reason...fuel tank had to go behind the motor because of the poor design...it would be pushed into the motor in the event of a heavy nose first landing and many caught fire this way.

IIRC, if the landing was rough enough, the engine would tear itself loose and eat the crew. I am referring to thr DH-2 and FE-2 of course.

The RE8 was an unpleasant machine. The Royal Aircraft Factory had managed to remove the no-spin "safety feature" of the BE series without adding manoeuvrability and added a few distinctly unsafe features to the finished product.
One occurance was the tendency to float in ground effect when coming into land. This caused the plane to drift across the aerodrome until it finally landed of its own accord, hit something, or became sufficiently slow that it stalled out or spun. Fortunately, most of the landings were normal landings, but the other options were always available to keep the crews' interest up.

I would imagine that a landing sufficiently heavy enough to break the engine free on a pusher would also be nearly as unpleasant for the pilot of a tractor aircraft as his not-strapped-in body slaps face first into his gun-butts. Also, what happens if he also has a nearly full fuel tank immediately behind his seat...

Question:Fly, weren't the airfoils more teardrop shaped and actually created less drag than the flat wings? I've read that somewhere, but not sure about it. The airfoils on the Dr1 and D7 were the first to have aerodynamic design that allowed air to pass over them more smoothly with less buffeting or something like that.

Reply: I have in a 1924 Aerodynamic tome a line that states that the thick wing such as the Fokker creates more drag than the thin wing, but the increase in drag is offset by a 2 to 1 purchase of lift. So the drag penalty is offset by a doubling of the lift.

This is how mediocre pilots looked good in D7's and Cherokees.

I want to fly as an observer in the SPAD 2. It had the engine and prop BETWEEN the pilot and the observer, who sat in front. That's living dangerously .

Well if he wasn't strapped in he would gargle the gun butts.

The engine in the pusher would flatten him

Richtofen's War by Avalon Hill had the chance that in a crash landing the pusher's crew would be killed.

I kind of miss that game. And TSR's Dawn Patrol.

I played an awful lot of Richtofens War in the late 70s/early 80s. Then Aces High appeared in The Wargamer and I don't remember playing RW again, although the counters did get transported to AH as they were so much better than the AH ones. I still have an escapee Alb D2 counter sitting on my book rack which needs to go back in the RW box.

Since it seems apparent we're only getting late 1917 to EOW, it's a game.

.......A well detailed one, but certainly not the successor to RB that I had hoped for.

Why only a game? Who said this sim had to represent the entire war? And every aspect of it? As long as it represents the men and machines of the time period that it takes place in properly to the fullest realism possible it is a sim.

Don't you know that unless it has 100 planes it isn't a sim?

Somebody better tell the Falcon 4 guys.