DR 1 or Camel

Which could turn tighter in real life? Which would be victorious in a 1 vs 1 ?

I'm not the aircraft expert but from what little I've gathered over the years, I would say the following. Camel turns faster to the right, DR 1 is faster to the left. Either could win, depending on the pilots skill though due to it's slower speed, I imagine once the DR 1 did engage in combat it would be difficult to disengage. Perhaps it could out-climb the camel?

The aircraft alone is never victorious, JimBobb - German aces shot down Sopwith Camel
while flying only the Albatros D.V themselves.

But if it comes to simply comparing both aircrafts' abilities, here is a video.

Not sure if they mentioned the Fokker's "flat turn" in this film.
That was an ability the "instabile" aircraft had - it could turn 180° without banking at all.
Not sure how fast it did, but Werner Voss used it very well against the 5 S.E.5a he fought
in his last fight. He put holes into all of them, and the British aces were deeply impressed.

But a dogfight has so many unforeseeable elements, that no one would like to fight them in
real life. And Voss got killed in the end.

Easy. Usually the guy who saw the other guy first and/or was never seen himself. However, I concede that was not an across-the-board guarantee. Look at Roy Brown’s failure to shoot down Richthofen during his surprise attack. (That’s right, folks: failure. The world is round and our solar system heliocentric, despite what we used to believe.)

Regarding turning, there are no flyable Dr.Is left. But Fred Murrin has a to-the-spec reproduction of one with an Oberursel, and he writes:

"It has long been accepted that the Dr.I could turn faster in one direction than in the opposite direction. I could not remember which way it was supposed to turn faster, so I decided to try it. After 16 years of flying the rotary Dr.I, I still can't tell which way it turns faster. It turns both ways equally fast and is not a function of the torque, rather the short fuselage and wings."

Other interesting first-hand comments from this knowledgeable man:

"The Dr.I has no dihedral in its wings and no vertical stabilizer, so a skidding turn was not difficult to make. The short fuselage and concentrated masses were also factors that helped with this unusual capability. The rotating engine, oddly enough, does little to inhibit the airplane's maneuverability. However, it does put a bending load on the crankshaft that could cause damage."

"Having attempted this flat turn in my own rotary Dr.I on several occasions, I can say the description that Voss 'threw his tail behind him' seems like a reasonable observation. When doing so, the airplane goes into buffeting caused by the obvious stall from the airflow going nearly span-wise across the wings. The nose doesn't drop, but the airplane is going very slow at this point. Given the marginal aileron performance and easy skidding qualities of the design, it is understandable that Voss and other pilots would find it expedient to turn with the rudder while fighting an airplane at the same altitude."

"Flying a rotary-powered Fokker Dr.I that is accurately built and with the same wing loading as an original [as does his] is not all that difficult, but landing it safely is the biggest challenge."

On the other side, Javier Arango has a just-as-accurate Camel reproduction with a Gnome rotary engine. Some of his comments:

“Flying the Sopwith Camel is a constant job. Its center of gravity is much farther back than that of our modern airplanes. This causes the Camel to be neutrally stable in pitch and yaw. The Camel does not naturally return to a stable flight speed. On the contrary, it tends to pick its own way, diverging at will with minimal warning to the pilot. One benefit is that control forces in pitch and yaw are minimal throughout its wide range of speeds. They are, in fact, so light that the airplane has no elevator trim. Our modern airplanes require constant use of a trim tab to adjust for control forces with a deviation of even 20 knots. The Camel can extend its speed through an envelope of 100 knots or more without use of a trim. On the other hand, the pilot must continuously fly the airplane, unable to let it go for long. This lack of positive stability is not a difficult thing to master. A moderately experienced pilot can easily learn to overcome this tendency. Bicycles are unstable too and yet we can all learn to ride them.”

“The Camel has poor control harmony; the elevators are very sensitive, the rudder has very little feel, and the ailerons are quite heavy. Managing the rotary engine is not as simple as operating a Hispano-Suiza, for example…When full power is selected, the Camel accelerates almost instantaneously, driven by its very large, efficient propeller, turning at low RPM, even at full power.”

“All these qualities may imply that the Camel is a difficult airplane to fly. It must have been to a pilot with very limited experience, mostly in underpowered, lumbering old planes. To such pilots, the immediate and aggressive acceleration of the Camel, combined with its light pitch forces, must have been startling, often leading to accidents. But the truth is that if one has the luxury of learning the ways of the Camel in peace, under good conditions, and with the benefit of experience, the airplane is a pleasure to fly. Pilots learn to adapt to the particular demands of the Camel very quickly. Within a few flights, the busy workload becomes second nature.”

Wow amazing ! i have pictured this and now i want to do this in WOFF in a DR 1

Great to see so much good knowledge from people who had the chance to fly these aircraft -
thanks for sharing, Jim!

When I compare both Planes in WOFF, I'd say the Dr1 would be far superior if... well, if there wouldn't be the Probability of the Top-Wing ripping apart in freaky maneuvers. This seemed to be a Problem in real life, also, as one can read here and there...

Hadn't seen that video before, good watch

I have tried executing a flat turn in the DR1 in OFF but not in WOFF. It was possible in OFF but the execution is slow and I suspect not realistic.

Yep, the Dr.I cannot perform that manoeuvre in WOFF.
I guess it is hard to achieve that ability in a sim FM - the RoF Fokker also cannot do it.
A pity...

Nietzsche, the top-wing was only a problem on the first batch of Fokkers.
The upper wing main box-type spar had been glued with a glue, that got loose
under the influence of moisture - which got trapped in the wing due to it's airfoil.
The Dr.I was withdrawn and restructured, and only saw service again in early 1918 (February, I think).

Glued?!?
What did they use on the lower Wings? Scotch Tape?

It causes some form of reaction and when it dries the piece is basically one solid piece of wood.Top quality wood furniture is actually glued together by using wood glue or Elmers glue as they can be substituted.I built a piece of furniture for my dad once and when he found out I glued the top piece on only he threw a hissy fit.I still vividly remember him hanging off this extending piece of wood trying his hardest to break it off with no luck.

AFAIK, the panels were glued and nailed together.

The main spars of the lower wings were much shorter and maybe
didn't break up as easily as the upper one did.

Wow... that really looks frighteningly fragile.
I guess that's the only way to achieve agility. If you build a plane solid as a brick - it sure flies like one...
@Wolf:
You are absolutely right. I'm shooting Hornbows in my Sparetime. They are made of multiple Layers, that are only glued toghether, too - with something, that essentially is boiled Fish-Slime...
I s just the way it sounds, that made me shiver: "No Problem. I fixed your Wings with a fresh tube of All-Purpose-Glue and a spool of iron wire." LOL

The Camel's framework is looking even more fragile to me.
I often wonder, how daring they were to climb into these kites and perform
the most stunning manoeuvres in them...

Simply done. Don't tell 'em how they were built

Or just show them what the trenches look like...

Mmuahahahahaaa!!!

The Dr1 can perform a skid turn in WOFF. It seems to go to the right better than the left (although that could be my imagination), but both directions are possible. With full rudder application you can change heading as much as 60 to 70 degrees in just a few seconds but it's impossible to maintain control more much longer than that. However if you don't apply as much rudder (maybe 50% or so, I haven't quantified it) you can accomplish a full 360*, and theortically continue indefinitely. It takes a considerable time...I didn't have a stopwatch but I gave up counting at 20 seconds and wasn't quite halfway around.

Despite popular misconception, those planes were strong. The Fokker Dr.I wings could sustain a load factor of nearly 8 Gs. Pilots would likely pass out or stall the plane before reaching that.

The initial problem with the Fokker wings was one of construction (the internal moisture problem Olham noted), not airframe structural design. Once they fixed that the wings were good to go, and a similar airframe was used on the Fokker D.VII.

Precisely my experience Sir

8 Gs... incredible, what has been achieved in those early days. Completely without State-of-the-Art Computer analysed Stress Simulations or even a Pocket Calculator. Pen, Paper and a Ruler was about all they had... and not much Experience, neither.
I mean, just take a look at those pics. You wouldn't think that this Construction would stand the Weight of a Briefcase. Ingenious

Those kind of pictures should be saved and brought out for any damage model discussions.
Not many places too hide in those aircraft! And note the fuel tanks.

Believe it or not - they just put sandbags on the main wingspar in tests.
That way they found out how much a wing could bear before it would break.
Here are some photos from the Fokker company:

One more example for a broken spar. If I get that right, the spar broke under 1000 kilogram.
The addition read "septuple". So the wing must have been able to bear "sextuple" the weight.

Thanks for the post Olham! You surprised me with that post. Very informative Sir!

Thank you, Robert.
Sometimes, when I realised I knew something AND remembered that I knew it,
I surprise mySELF. Mmuahahahahaaa!!!

Speaking of Fokker wing strength there is photo of, I am fairly certain, of a Fokker D VIII.
It shows Anthony himself, I believe, and about 15 or 20 guys standing on the upper (only) wing of the aircraft.
He seemed to always get a lot of bad press about structural issues so this was a PR photo.
Of course, as demonstrated with the Alb series, static strength ( men and sandbags) was never an issue but the twist and turns of flight/motion that caused issues.
And forgive my choice of words I forget the physics terms for the forces I am trying to describe.

Here's a free ebook on that very subject. [url=http://www.freebookspot.es/TopTen.aspx?Category_ID=124][/url] http://www.freebookspot.es/TopTen.aspx?Category_ID=124

That shows the first page - the actual book is on page 1301 but you can have fun looking at all the others on the way if you like.

IIRC, the original design and prototype had no interplane struts and the wings withstood the forces fine. Pilots' worries about some flutter is what caused Fokker to add them.

I have heard that story also.
Fokker (or Platz) felt the wings were strong enough without them but they were added at the insistence of the pilots.

Just noticed WOFF has this modelled also

Olham, are those your models? If so, I need a raging green smiley of envy!

And thanks for the old timey pics! Very informative posts!

Good grief JimBobb. It's amazing how much is going on "under the hood" in WOFF!

Why would this be? They were both rotary engines. Did they spin in opposite directions?

A recreation of the original Nieuport 28 plans showed that the part of the upper wing, where the fabric tended to rip away from the fram in high-speed dives, was improperly nailed/tacked. It was only glued in that certain section, which was the reason for the tearing tendency.

Obviously things didn't always go so well when one or the other was skimped.


From what I gathered, the standard construction technique of the time was to use both nails and glue to secure the wing fabric. Not sure if there were some rare models that may have done it differently during WW1.