Crash and Burn wrote:
Phil Hall, designer of Blue Max, once told me, "I have noticed that in many reference works, there is a tendency to take the best possible performance without regard to when the aircraft was able to perform like that." and I completely agree with him. Special attention must be given to the SE5A. The actual combat speed of the production plane with the
200hp Wolseley Viper engine was approximately 122mph at 6,000 feet. Planes with the 200hp (not the 150hp) Hispano-Suiza engine performed better, but these were few in number. Most sources tend to lead the researcher to believe that the SE5A had a speed of more than 135mph, which was a post war speed due to the installation of better and much improved engines.