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| City: | Mahomet, Il.  | | Personal Data: | Male, born: August 15 1948 | | Membership | 22years 1day ago. | | Last Login | 6years 235days ago. | | Last Move | 11years 230days ago. | Phil Hall is currently  | Send a mail to Phil Hall |
| | Message text I can copy and send you a table of the serials and what engines they had. Seems to me the Bristol would be better represented in the game with a speed increase OR two guns on the back.
The original game uses two guns in the observers position. Why this wasn't done in the online version only the webmasters can say. I wasn't aware that the online version was different. I believe I now have just such a table in a recent acquisition but will keep your offer in mind.
Carbeuration, no. compression yes. The higher compression engines were better able to handle the thin air. (See technical articles on Allison v. Merlin engines, and DB601 v. DB603 engines). Since they inherently had a longer stroke, they could draw in more air/fuel, therefore, leaned out, they could produce more power at higher altitudes.
>Engines have to do more with speed and torque. Two WWI >aircraft with the same engine could show markedly differnt >performance.
Yes, but this has much more to do with wing area, wing loading, total weight, control surfaces sizes, deflection amount, etc. I'm not sure where you're going with the speed and torque thing. All engines have an optimal speed where HP and torque are maximized.
To clarify, I meant the same aircraft type. There are numerous anectdotal complaints that one aircraft would have to throttle back or another throttle up to maintain formation. This was still a problem with piston powered aircraft into WWII. Having pushed some big iron around the sky I can attest to having to constantly play with the throttle to maintain formation with other identical types. Improper carburation resulting in a to lean or to rich setting is the most likely culprit given that linkages were mechanical, fuel of dubious consistency, and therefore prone to incomplete combustion.
Longitudinal torque in an inline engine would affect the roll of an aircraft, not turn. If it did affect turn, we'd have a whole bunch of old Dodges and Chevys driving around cock-eyed, or breaking motor mounts every 1000 miles. Have you ever noticed in a high HP straight six car, when you gun the engine the right side of the vehicle lifts up more than the left? This is the torque of the engine. The crankshaft is spinning to the left, and wants to roll the whole car to the left, not turn. Now, apply this to a relatively low horsepower engine that weighs almost twice as much as current ones, and this effect is negated. The additional mass of the engine counters the low horsepower on the crankshaft.
This makes my point about the D.III, in conjunction with the fact that Pfalz increased the size of the rudder. All aircraft suffer from torque in the air, some more so than others. The closer the CG to the center of the aircraft the less torque affects it. This was actually the Camels curse and blessing, the CG was nearly ahead of the lower wing, making it awfully susceptible to the gyroscopic effect of the engine. The common method of handling torque in a WWII aircraft is to trim it to fly hands-off. The trim tabs move the ailerons and the tail to a "permanent" position that keeps the aircraft flying straight and level. In WWI the pilot had to manually hold the controls in the postition needed to keep the aircraft straight and level. While I can't speak to how much input the D.III required, the Camel needed forward stick and left rudder input to fly straight and level. The D.III would have required some left rudder input to counteract the yaw effect of the torque, and probably a bit more than the D.IIIa with the larger rudder. Now combine the torque of a straight engine causing the a/c to roll to the left with an increase in rudder deflection and you get a sudden turn to the left. This is just a theory until something is found among the records which explain why it happened and what was done about it. The increase in rudder size may also have been to handle a ground loop problem or a drift on take off. It is really hard to say unless the designers notes turn up.
...only thing left to discuss is control. So the Pfalz had different length wires to the tail allowing the rudder to pull more to the left for a left turn? I doubt this is true.
No, I didn't say that. What I meant is the pilot had to make control inputs to keep the aircraft straight and level. There seems to be a picture of pilots casually holding the stick, there feet straight out in front of them while they fly merrily along, thanks mostly to Hollywood. In most, if not all WWI a/c that simply isn't true. The pilot isn't just the person who controls the airplane, he is part of the control system itself. If the aircraft is going to do something as simple as fly straight and level, the pilot must fly the plane into that position and hold it there with control inputs. Some a/c, like the Camel, were a very fatiguing a/c to fly because of the large inputs necessary to keep the a/c where the pilot wanted it. You didn't let your attention wander in a Camel. It was a true pilots a/c. The interesting thing is you don't find any of that mentioned in anectdotal evidence of the period. You will find it in FLYING THE(INSERT A/C HERE) articles but apparently the pilots of the day considered it not worth mentioning, it was just the way you flew a plane.
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