No.

Look at the opinions of those who are most knowledgable about WW1 aviation in this thread, like Pat Wilson. There's a big difference here between those who "know" their WW1 stuff from playing the video game, and those who have studied the era previously because it is a passion.

Okay.



Well, that's quite conclusive then.

Never claimed to have conclusive facts. If you go back to what I have posted the only thing that I believe is conclusive is that nothing is conclusive. Anybody that "knows" even as simple a thing the top speed of any of these aircraft is wrong. Variations in engine manufacture, the vagaries of hand manufacture, different techniques at different factories, differences in rigging, the list goes on and on and on as to why no two of these things flew the same way. That leaves us with best guesses and about right.

Best guesses and about right (a thousand FM discussions since RB3D in 1998, reading the aerodrome for about the same period of time, many pilot accounts) seem to indicate that most Albatros D.Va were generally a few MPH faster than most Camels. Can I prove it conclusively? See above.

The guy before me called you out as being an expert. I'm not expecting you to have the answers, but apparently he does.

I know we have best guesses, and we have data. Data at least gives us something. RoF is not my first rodeo, so to think I only know about WWI because of it - which that other fella claims - is ignorant. I don't get into the FM debates because not even two data sets agree with WWII aircraft let alone WWI. The best bet is to aggregate the data and go with an average.

However, when you start bringing accounts in without data - plane x is faster than plane y according to some pilots. Or plane z climbs faster than plane v, it gets extremely fuzzy. How much faster? How much better of a climb? At what angle and speed is the climb better? At what altitude was it faster? What engine was the the faster plane using versus the slower plane? Some of these planes were fitted with at least 5 different engines of differing power outputs.

How do you quantify a pilot's account into usable data?

Not to mention, all of this clamoring for neutering one plane while also making one plane better seems to follow individual's preferences for the one they prefer to use.

I am not disagreeing that physical data should carry as much weight as possible. However, with these planes there is a tremendous lack of physical data. That is truth. Given that we are left with educated guesses. It has to be acknowledged that this is where we are at and all that we are arguing about is how best to guess.

In RB3D Western Front Patch after we put in the numbers (A gentleman with the handle of Greybeard did the FMs - quite admirably too for a 1998 product) I think that we ended up with something like 115 MPH for the DRI, 118 for the Camel, 122 for the Pfalz and 124 for the Albatros DVa, 128 for the SPAD VII, 135 for the SPAD XIII, and 137 for the SE5a. Seemed reasonable then and still seems reasonable now. These were based on best available data. It is 10 years later and maybe there is better information out there today.

What we found was that as we dug for information it seemed to largely correlate with the weight of pilot accounts. For instance, the oft quoted 103 MPH for the DRI was really 103 at 10K meters. Extrapolated to sea level it becomes 115 MPH. Numbers for the Pfalz and Albatros were also dug into. We found that German HP ratings, because they were done at fixed RPM and not optimal RPM, tended to be a bit low. It was not luftwhining and certainly did not result in the late 1917 crop of German planes becoming world beaters.

If you look at the numbers posted above the Pfalz and Albatros become what they were reputed to be - mediocre. A bit faster than the Camel but lacking the maneuverability. They were a bit slower than the SPAD VII (about 128 MPH) but had the extra gun. They were a good deal slower than the SPAD XIII and SE5a. Seemed right, so hats off to Greybeard all these years later .

I don't suppose you would be able to access the relevant data from those FM calculations and present them?

I'm all for hard data that's been entered and calculated that provides a consistent outcome across the board.

I just don't like the fuzzy math where arbitrary values are entered to get a plane to perform more to accounts where some guys said something about the performance of one plane verse another, but we don't know what that means in terms of replicating it.

Unfortunately, those are from may years ago on the Delphi Red Baron forum. I was never the FM guy so other than reading and nodding I didn't contribute much to the conversation.

The web site is till there

http://forums.delphiforums.com/n/main.as...p;gid=161717689

I think there has been a lot of confusion about this, both German and Allied engines had their HP expressed at a rated speed, namely the optimal RPM for their fixed pitch propellers. They could all produce more power, but could not use it because of the limitation of the fixed pitch.

For example, the 180 hp Hispano Suiza v8 used on the SPAD 7 with a rated speed of 1800 RPM actually developped peak HP of 248 @2250 RPM.

I am curious, where do people get the numbers for the speeds of the Albatros from? I am asking because all the data I have found, which is admittedly not much, (i.e. Wikipedia and a couple of books which I don't have on hand now) imply that the D.III is slower than the camel, and the D.V is only ever so slightly faster (and is slower in some sources).
I also find that this doesn't tally with the written accounts about the war, so why the discrepancy? Am I using books/sources with incorrect data? Is the data for the camel based on a 'perfect model' or something?
Apologies if this side-tracks the discussion, but it seems relevant, and has been bugging me for a bit.

The only sensible conclusion is that in service rotary performance was highly variable.

Squadron level performance of the Clerget 9B seems to have caused enough concern that in 1918 back to back comparative tests were done with engines from different manufacturers and with different service lives. The results have been posted over at the ROF site, some examples were awful.