Stonewall wrote:
If the Sopwith Tri-plane had superior performance characteristics over the Sopwith Camel why was the Camel adopted over the Tri-plane? I read somewhere that the Germans were so impressed with the Tri-planes capabilities that they captured a downed Sopwith Tri-plane and used it as a model for the Dr. I. I'm curious why the Allies would use the Camel instead of the Tri-plane. The Tri-plane was introduced first and had better performance capabilities? A head scratcher to me.
--- Message edited by Stonewall
This is weird...
I tried to post yesterday and it never showed up...
Hopefully this will...
The Camel was sturdier and heavier armed (the Tripe had only one gun to the Camel's two). The Tripe also got a bad rep as a flimsy plane, since it experienced a number of wing failures due to insufficient bracing (wires were too weak). Dive it hard and your wings fold...Gave it a bad rep.
It was also extremely hard to service.
The Fokker Dr.I also had a number of structural failures, i.e. wings coming off in mid-flight. That was because the wing loading on the top wing was twice that of the middle and lower wing. Go into a hard maneuver and....bang! You have no top wing. It really wasn't that good of plane. There were only a few hundred of them made.
History has made the Dr.I more prominent than it really was in the war. |
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