One thing about visiting Europe; there seem to be battlefields everywhere. I would encourage anyone to visit.. to think about all the suffering, and to learn and ponder about the history.
People generaly don´t think about it that way. But it was well into the industrial revolution. No only was the first generation steam engine old news by then (the Newcomen engines) also the second gen (the watt engine) was alreddy 40 years old, and the third gen steam engine, the high pressure steam engine was already demonstrated more than a decade earlier. Its kind of misleading to call the period from 1712 to 1880 for the first industrial revolution and the 1880 to 1914 the second industrial revolution. Specially since the stationary engine period was very different from the mobile engine period
@@m.e.345actually if you visit Britain you can find endless historical battlefields in fact the other side of the hill where I spent my youth were two suspicious humps labelled on the Ordnance Survey 'Battlebury', as yet uninvestigated by archeology.
The best factoid about the rotary engines was they were lubricated with Castor oil...which was thrown back at the pilot as it flew. They were able to determine if the engine was getting enough oil from the sheen on the wing and it was said that upon landing the Crew Chief would run out with a jigger of booze to give to the pilot. This was to cut the Castor oil from his throat and he'd then make a hasty retreat to the head as the oil has a real impact on your ability to not crap yourself. Flying back then wasn't the glamorous thing as portrayed today in the movies...it was cold, hard and uncomfortable business.
I heard this on a PBS show focusing on this era of fighter aircraft. I remember building a Sopwith Camel model and the prop was fixed directly to the engine, and I kept thinking “That’s obviously wrong.”. That lead me to learning about the “rotary” engine it had.
They love telling that story at Rhinebeck - where you can actually see a Pup, Camel, Avro actually flying on vintage rotaries! But I never heard the jigger of booze anecdote... makes sense, though! Thanks for that... and yea. Not only was flying then terrifying, but a truly a miserable experience for the poor pilots.
And they made the S.E.5 and S.E.5a fighters. Strangely a full scale production fighter had the name: Scout Experimental (S.E. stands for that). So, the Royal Flying Corps fought with experimental aircrafts, right? 😄
This is one of the very few TH-cam channels where not only are the comments worth reading, they're often almost as good as the video. Very informative stuff here. My thanks to all who contributed.
As an auto mechanic I find watching radial engine crankshafts in motion absolutely hypnotizing. I never have seen a video of this that was long enough for me. Something that interesting deserves at least a few minutes of viewing.
You should do a search on the Salmson water cooled radials of WWI, they had a fascinating solution for the normally used master connecting rod of later fixed radials.
@@Jbroker404 It was among one of the most commonly fielded French Obs and Bomber powerplants in WWI. Nearly all of the Voisin LA3 and later pushers and the Salmson A2 late war obs bomber used by both the French and the American Expeditionary air forces.
@@tauncfester3022Saw a Salmson radial in the Museo Storico Aeronautica Militare in Italy. It had a diagram explaining the Canton-Unne mechanism used in place of a master rod. I had to stare at the diagram for a long time before I could understand how it worked. MUSAM also has the Macchi MC72 float plane which set the world’s speed record of 441 mph in 1934. It still holds the record for propeller powered seaplanes.
@@tauncfester3022 I imagine that was the solution where a stationary gear in the crank case was part of a gear train that engaged a gear on the rod journal. This keeps the rod gear stationary in that it maintains the correct relationship to allow the use of all link rods with no master rod. Nordberg Corporation of Milwaukee used the same solution on an 11 cylinder stationary radial engine used for generating and pumping stations. 14" bore and stroke for 23,607ci. Plus they had a 12 cylinder with an even more novel method of maintaining the rod carrier of their own invention.
The great stunt pilot Frank Tallman had a Camel in his collection that he restored and flew at many military shows and civilian events. He mentioned how cramped the cockpit was for his 6'1" frame and as far as the sensitivity of the controls he said "Don't think I ever got out of a Camel after being airborne without buckets of perspiration and considerable gratitude that I had gotten the little girl home without breaking her into splinters!" If a pilot of Tallman's caliber got that nervous flying one; imagine what it must have been like for many of the ham-handed RFC trainees trying to solo in a Camel.
I still have Frank Tallman's book "Flying the Old Planes" that I bought as a kid in the 1970s. It was fun to pull it out and reread the chapter on the Camel.
Apart from the gyroscopic precession I believe I've read that as it had no trim tabs like modern aircraft and rearward force on the control column in straight and level flight was needed. It must've been a right little piggy to fly, I also believe I read somewhere that it killed more pilots in training than it did in combat although I can't vouch for that.
The various engines used in the Camel also had an effect of pilot fatigue. The early 1917 Camels with the late LeRhone and 130 hp Clerget 9b were rather "nicer" to fly if a little climb limited. The Gnome 160 Monosupape (monovalve..) was a little heavier in gyro-precession, torque, extremely noisy, soaked everything in it's Castor oil haze and rather coarse in it's clockwork ignition/speed controls. The later Clerget/Bently's were an improvement on the Gnome, The Gnome is the engine you see flying most of the present day replica and preserved Camels. It's the engine who's exhaust noise is mostly a wall of white noise with the ignition "couping" sputtering partial "throttle" settings. Yeah I would think a two hour patrol behind that lump would be worse than the earlier engines
It's amazing to me the difference in stature, especially in "western" countries, of an average male changed in the 100 years between 1914 and 2014. I was doing some research into acquiring a vintage US army uniform from WW I, with a view toward possibly wearing it during "Wild Bunch" shooting matches. I rapidly found out that was never going to happen, as the average US infantryman in WW I was approximately 5' 4" tall, with a 26-28" waist, and weighed between 120 and 135 pounds. At 6' tall and 195 pounds, there was no vintage uniform that was going to fit me. I would have to have a replica uniform made. I never did. But it speaks to why Mr. Tallman had a hard time getting into and out of a Camel.
Fascinating! Just as an aside, my step-grandfather flew the Avro 504k as a reconnaissance pilot. He crashed after his 4-5th (not sure) mission over Belgium and we still have the joystick. As the story goes, he got lost when coming back across the channel having fallen asleep momentarily during the crossing back due to exhaustion- followed the wrong railway line (the navigational aid they used) when he reached the coast, and headed north by accident. Ran out of fuel and crash landed in a field in Essex and was invalided out of the war. He was only 19! Lived to 1984.
@@valleywoodstudio7345 504k was a training aircraft, never flew in Belgium or France, some were pushed into service as home defence fighters against zeppelins.
@@jeremyfoster6942 Interesting - just going on my memories of what he said! I can send you a picture of the joystick as i may be misremembering the aircraft - it was before 1984 after all. But he was definitely a reconnaissance pilot and crashed on the wayback after running out of fuel and getting lost.
@@valleywoodstudio7345maybe he crashed in france/ Belgium? It would be unlikely for a reconnaissance aircraft to cross the Channel considering the front lines were many miles east of the continental Channel ports, which were in allied hands throughout the duration of the war
@@jeremyfoster6942 I'm going on memory here (40 years!) but we do know he was returning across the channel and got lost (he said because he nodded off, but he may have been joking!) and followed the wrong railway line which was the point of navigational reference and crashed in Essex - "flipped over a hedge in a farmers field" to paraphrase!. He also said his role was reconnaissance. Maybe this was a courier mission this time - of course all anecdotal. I think it occurred in 1917 as he was 19 then. He got the joystick retrieved from the wreck and kept it by his seat all his life.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobilesPersonally, I have no trouble with longer videos, as my main interest is to have the most information as possible... Lazy people could either skip the video or just look for "shorts"... I am here to LEARN, UNDERSTAND, DIGEST, and MAKE ME THINK abundantly after carefully watching every Greg video. (BTW, the ones on the Fw-190 are my most enjoyed ones, but up to now, I surely enjoy every one), sincerely. A.M. Claussen.
If you've not yet read VM Yeates' book Winged Victory, it's a must-get. Yeates was a WW1 Camel pilot, and the book is full of incredible and hilarious notes on what it was like to fly a Camel: "Camels were wonderful fliers when you had got used to them, which took about three months of hard flying. At the end of that time you were either dead, a nervous wreck, or the hell of a pilot and a terror to Huns, who were more unwilling to attack Camels than any other sort of machine except perhaps Bristol Fighters. But then Bristol Fighters weren't fair. They combined the advantages of a scout with those of a two-seater. Huns preferred fighting SEs which were stationary engined scouts more like themselves, for the Germans were not using rotary engines except for their exotic triplanes, and the standard Hun scout was the very orthodox Albatross. They knew where they were with SEs, which obeyed the laws of flight and did as properly stabilized aeroplanes ought to do. If you shot at one, allowing correctly for its speed, you would hit it: it would be going the way it looked as if it were going, following its nose. But not so a Camel. A Camel might be going sideways or flat-spinning, or going in any direction except straight backwards. A Camel in danger would do the most queer things, you never knew what next, especially if the pilot was Tom Cundall. And in the more legitimate matter of vertical turns, nothing in the skies could follow in so tight a circle, so that, theoretically speaking, all you had to do when caught miles from home by dozens of Huns was to go into a vertical bank and keep on turning to the right until the Huns got hungry and went down to their black bread and sauerkraut, or it got dark: the difficulty was that you might run out of petrol and have to shoot them all down on the reserve tank, so that it might be as well to shoot them all down at once, as recommended in patriotic circles." And so on - brilliantly well written.
One of my absolute favourite books, and as you say, very well-written indeed, and by a pilot who'd logged 248 hours of combat flying in Camels on the Western Front.
@@RemusKingOfRome To be fair, we do that with war in general. It really is egregious mass murder where young men are forced to kill and maim other young men they don't know and would likely be friends with under normal circumstances. But Peanuts was a very clever and endearing cartoon strip. So we will cut Charles Schulz some slack.
Until this video wrapped up, I didn't realize how much I appreciated listening to a good narrator! YT is full of pieces hosted by readerbots (and those who speak like bots), people who don't know how to pronounce key terms, or struggle with English. This was very educational, and not padded with unrelated images - one of the banes of many, many vids. Enjoyed this very much, particularly as my grandfather knew the planes of the era, being an RFC back-seater in R.E. 8s!
Regarding modellers and flat RAF wire: a common method is to use a flat elastic thread. If you make sure it isn’t twisted it looks really nice. Having built a Bristol Fighter, Camel and a Felixstowe flying boat (derived from the big Curtiss designs) rigged this way I can confirm it’s also a massive pain!
Spot on, modellers often use Prim knitting elastic which is flat. We can also get rigging wires in photo etch. That’s more difficult to get the right fit and is easily damaged.
The up side on the flat wires is that they don’t use turnbuckles. They were made in approximately the correct length and had screws at each end. To tighten or loosen them the riggers would turn the screws at each end.
I fly giant-scale WWI models. For my 1/3 scale Sopwith Pup, I have functional flying wires exactly like the original. Currently I'm using braided steel wire silver soldered onto clevises, but I've got a big spool of 1/3 scale RAF flying wire from - I think - Proctor - that I intend to install when I get around to it! But it's a major hassle to work with... I only use the elastic for the occasional non-functional wire on some of my smaller models, like my 84" Eindecker.
I've been able to buy Kevlar tow thread which is wound on the bobbin and has a sort of flattish profile. I build smaller WWI RC models and use working rigging. There's this older, what used to be called Dacron thread used for Cox control line models is pretty good as a substitute when your model is 1/12" scale, build in lightness. Most of my 1/12 scale WWI models weigh less than 250 grams.
Used to have a local wire rope manufacturer. In the 1980s they were still producing limited runs of wire for aircraft with a sort of airfoil section. Using the same drawing and rolling dies they had been using since the WW1 era or shortly after that. MacWhyte Wire Rope
My great grandmother was born in the 1880's and lived well past man landing on the moon. As a child, I was fascinated to listen to her stories from horse and buggy days up through both world wars culminating with the space program.
I asked my mother, born 1920, if, as a girl she would run out to look at a biplane when it flew over. She said, "when I was a kid we ran out to see a car when it went by."
My grandfather born 1900 died 2002. Went from no cars at all gas lights on the streets and in the houses to the modern world. Didn't get an indoor toilet until the 1980s and used a tin bath in front of the fire until then.
That 48 years between aircraft makes me think of my great grandpa, born 1903, died 1993. In his lifetime he went from seeing Wright Flyers to biplanes, a world war, radio invented, barnstorming, an Allis Challmer tractor, depression, another world war, a new Ford 8N, telephones, another war, television, another war, his first airplane flight in a DC-3, nukes, the adoption of jet aircraft, the Mercury & Gemini flights, sound barrier broken, another war, landing on the moon, color tv, his first international flight (to Japan to see me after birth), a new Ford 8N, Skylab, the 747, computers at home, 200 years!, Space Shuttle, MTV, another Ford 8N, sell the farm, old folks home, stealth, another war, we inherit the Ford 8N. That really had to be a period of near wizardry, watching the Wright Flyer turn into a Space Shuttle and stealth. Yet that trusty 8N, one a Jubilee, was constant, some things don’t need improvement.
@@sadwingsraging3044 definitely agreed on the PTO. Growing up we had 30 acres, 15 of it was “mowable” according to mom, that meant a whole lot of time with the bush hog. Put on the Walkman and drive lines & loops for hours on end. Loved that tractor, still do, and SO easy to work on. When my grandparents were older I used to drive our tractor, another 8N (of course), over to their house to help plow, disc & plant in the spring. Was like a 15-20 minute drive in a car, a good hour plus on the tractor. Was 14 and at the time that was the legal age to drive a farm implement on the road in Ohio. Keep in mind this was VERY rural Ohio, country roads, and only township police which consisted of 3 of them, sharing 1 car. I hope there’s kids out there that still get to grow up that way.
@c1ph3rpunk yep. Original Brush Hog grandpa had was an old solid blade instead of a swing out stump jumper type common today. That thing would push you right into a tree or ditch if you were foolish enough to get yourself into a bind by not thinking ahead when cutting. I was so glad when grandpa got a slipper for that PTO. I guess I was the first one to actually read the manual for her when I took the time to set up the hydraulics to where I could have the tractor running 1/4 throttle out of gear but the PTO engaged with the Brush Hog spinning and you could lift the entire Brush Hog with just one arm lifting it up. Made it sooooo much easier when crossing water bar/drainage ditching after I set that up right. Kids these days...😑 All of them should know the proper meaning of the word hoe... Before school, after school till almost dark and even on the weekends if the conditions were inducive to growing weeds you were in that garden. Hard work but man we ate good fresh foods and fruits. Grandma standing on the back porch saying "That one" and me having to chase that damn chicken down. "That one" wasn't always the one that made it into the Chicken Stew it took me _years_ to re-create off of memory on how it tasted! 🥄😋🍲 good times.
My grandmother Emma, of happy memory was born in 1886, by 1914 was a young woman with a daughter & lived from before the era of the internal combustion engine to the time of Concorde & the moon landings - what an extraordinary century & life!
@@sadwingsraging3044 I still can’t eat store bought greenhouse tomatoes, they just don’t taste the same, I’ll only eat them in season when I can get them fresh. Same at our house, we had more fresh food than any city folk around me today can really fathom. And canning… All the time spent canning but come January, tomato sauce, green beans, mmmm. Funny one, dad was unemployed one year, think it was ‘85, and had this bright idea to plant several acres of sweet corn to sell. Well, after doing the usual he gets a job, in another state, and leaves it to me. Was hella work but all but paid for my first car that year, a ‘70 Mustang Mach I. Think I paid like $800 for it, that was a lot of “dollar a dozen” sweet corn. Dollar a dozen, geez that sounds weird.
The better French fighter pilot aces, the ones flying the Nieuport Bebe/17 and other types with the Lewis guns mounted on their upper wing, had a thing about being very precise and calculating, so they would only fire their gun a few rounds to make a kill. Charles Nungesser was famous for his using as little ammo as possible.
Hi Greg, yes the directional bracing RAF wires are almost more like straps. I was just admiring it on the Camel and the Udvar-Hazy branch of the Smithsonian Air & Space museum recently. If I can find a good picture I will send it to you. Most of us just modelers just use the elastic "Easyline' because the scale is so small the RAF wire becomes hard to appreciate. That said, there are photoetched brass kits for RAF wire that are flat to simulate RAF wire properties. That is SO much fun at 1/72 scale but, it you can pull it off, you can have a museum grade model when you are done. You just need steady hands, a powerful opti-visor, good tools, good lighting and the patience of a monk. 😁
As a air force vet i recommend this channel as the best all around channel on TH-cam for everything in antique aircraft and cars. This channel came up while I was looking at early Italian cars. Since I work on Italian cars. I haven't been interested in early aircraft but that changed after finding this awesome channel. The information is easy to understand and informative and ranks as one of my four favorite channels along with nile red, styro pyro, explosions and fire. I just wish it had shown up under recommendations years ago so I don't spend hours that I should be sleeping instead of binge watching this channel.
An excellent video, I have heard the argument about the Camel's maneuverability for years but to hear a sound aerodynamic explanation of the ups and downside of the aircraft was enlightening. Ty!
thanx Greg. I rarely comment on videos, but as a 70 year old aviation nut, a pilot, and the grandson of a WW1 vet in the US Army Air Service, this is a subject i have often wondered about I do wish you had talked about the throttle....i believe rotaries ran flat out all the time, unless the pilot cut ignition to the cylinders
Not really on point, but I need to highly recommend a book called 'No Parachute' by Arthur Gould Lee. By his own admission a middling Pup pilot in 1917, the book is a mix of his diary and letters home. The Camel enters into it because of how envious he is of the twin machine guns. There are also plenty of examples of his gun freezing up on him, which he handled by a combination of violence and getting to lower altitude where it was warmer.
@@donyoung1384 I believe that got thrown in as an additional reason, but the main cause was that parachutes were far too bulky for most of the war. Check out the fittings on observation balloons to see what I mean.
Thanks as ever, Greg. The best WW1 novel of war in the air is often held to be Winged Victory by V M Yeates, an old Camel pilot and it's plainly fictionalised reality. Published in 1934, the year he died, it was out of print in 1940 but copies were then fetching £5 among RAF fighter pilots. Yeates stressed the basic instability of the Camel, which seems to have made it all the more responsive, and that it was a touch more difficult to shoot down as it was rarely pointing the way it was going. At least one WW2 RAF ace said that he trimmed his aircraft to fly a bit crabwise in combat for just that reason.
Glad to find another Yeates fan! I'll second the recommendation, Greg - if you've never read it you have a treat in store. It's a good novel as well as technically interesting. Try to find the unabridged version (there was a bowdlerized version published by Consul Books in the 1960's), such as that in the Echoes of War series published by Buchan and Enright.
I'll third the recommendation. It's an outstanding account of what it must have been like for young men to have been thrust into this situation and to have to deal with everything that was thrown at them. The unvarnished detail of daily life is ultimately very moving.
Great documentary - thanks. Tommy Sopwith used to live just 10 miles from me near Winchester. He went on to form Hawker and was still active within Hawker Siddeley even until 1980, when he was 92. He lived to be 101, so quite a life.
Cool, I'll check that out. The Camel, the Hurricane, and the Harrier. What an absolute legend. And of course, after WWI he was given a CBE... and then bankrupted for "excess war profits" by His Majesty's Government. Who were salty over the price tag of a war started by the King's first cousin Kaiser Wilhelm.
@@petewood2350 BBC radio in the 70s made a documentary "Icarus with an Oil Can" about the early days of flight with interviews with surviving pioneers like Thomas Sopwith.
About having 4 vs 2 ailerons. Albatros, Spad, and even more the Nieuport (with specs closest to a Camel) were sesquiplanes, (1+1/2 planes) meaning the bottom wing is shorter (lengthwise) than the upper one. So bracing both wings together with struts left little area on the lower wing for ailerons. Top one had more area and span, allowing for more effective ailerons, and bypassing cable complications. Adjusting those 2x3 ailerons cables on a Sopwith triplane must have been a mechanics headache. Same idea applies to Fokker Dr1, which upper wing is longer and wider, and the only to sport ailerons, which consequentially are quite long. About "RAF wires". You find elliptical (flattened) spokes on modern racing bicycles, which do seem to improve aerodynamics, while not compromising strength compared to conventional, cylindrical spokes.
I just became a Patreon member of this channel. My very 1st Patreon membership! It has always been one of my favorite arial warfare channels. Your vocal presentation is always spot on, informed, knowledgeable, and clear. What tipped the scale was that you never take 30 seconds too plead us to join...and instead offer this wide array of literature and pamphlets that we'd surely never have access to left to our own devices. Thank you Greg, keep up the excellent work!
Imagine, no oxygen mask, flying top patrol at nearly 20,000 feet. The good news is there was usually only fuel for and hour and a half. The rotarys had no throttle, just ignition cut, out for landing. Most WW1 pilots had a flask of brandy with them, helped with the cold, PTSD, added courage...., and of course tempered the laxitive they were inhaling from the rotary.
The camel did have a magneto switch that allowed it to cut out a few cylinders and still have a running engine. How pilots were able to fly the plane while inhaling the exhaust is beyond me. Plus, no parachute, as "a pilots job was to stick to his aeroplane"-Tough men!
@@JohnWaldron-cm7ce parachute were available though, and Ernst Udet did used one to save his life. It just weigh, or some unfounded fear of desertion that most not equipped with
The Sopwith Camel and the Bf 109 always seem to be somewhat synonymous to me. Both were lethal to their enemies in skilled hands...and equally lethal to their own inexperienced pilots. I think that's why both developed a cult following among ace pilots in their respective air forces - they were challenging to fly and not for the fainthearted, but they rewarded pilots who had the skill and the determination to master them. To learn to fly one well was a badge of honour.
@@tauncfester3022 Not even remotely. One of the most back-handed compliments any German ever paid to the Spitfire (and the Hurricane) is that they were "childishly simple to fly, compared to our fighters". Like the Bf109, the Spitfire did have a narrow track undercarriage, which made ground handling a bit tricky. And, like all tail draggers, the view to the front with the tail down was very poor. But that's where the comparisons end. Allied pilots found the Spitfire to be a joy to fly. German pilots loved their Bf 109's...but there was a bit of pride in mastering a difficult mount in that. Of course, the early Spitfires did have the negative G issue, due to their float carburettors...but that was more of an aggravation that might allow an enemy aircraft to escape, rather than one that would endanger their pilot. Bf 109's on the other hand, were very tricky to take-off and land and they could be challenging in flight as well. These issues were only exacerbated as the war progressed and the 109's got heavier. By contrast, Allied pilots found the Spitfire's handling qualities to be excellent, even early on.
Forgot to mention, some guys use guitar stings. They are round but the are so small you can't really tell....unless you are a member of the holy order of rivet counters. Gaspatch actually makes turnbuckles but those take super patience...but man do they look good when you are done!
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Take a look at Dan Smith. That's the channel name. He builds a lot of 1/33rd scale Card Models from European publishers. He generally does it with stretch rigging material, cyanoacrylate and kicker. He either does build series or just presentation videos of complete models. It may be mostly paper but he does some amazing work. In the last year he's done a Vickers Vimy and an Austrian flying boat from WWl.
Hi. Magic. For the first time you have managed to explain clearly to me the effects of rotary engines. As in the camel. Very clearly..this is even after being trained as anRAF ENGINE fitter. Thank you. Jon Jackson 👍🏼
Just popping in to say that I love this and the other WW1 material, particularly as a childhood fan of Biggles and the Derek Robinson novels. I’m poor at physics and engineering, and am grateful for the straightforward presentation of how these concepts affected these planes. Cheers
@@raycollishaw673 I have not, but from the enthusiastic Wikipedia page they sound fun! I think I detect a sardonic note in one of that page’s editors: “The books are noted for their humour and word play, as well as technical and historical accuracy (except possibly in India).” I shall look it up, thanks for the recommendation. Re Robinson, “Piece of Cake” followed by “War Story” stuck with me.
This is one of the most fascinating videos I have ever watched - thank you for such a clear explanation. Gyroscpes and precession are among the black arts!
It is amazing to think how insanely fast the evolution of the plane was in the First World War. It almost seems that as soon as an aircraft came out and hit the front lines it was pretty much obsolete. And the pilots themselves, so many of them used to have a fair knowledge of engineering (especially the aces) so used to make their own impromptu tweaks to their planes. Cracking video sir.
One of my favorite places is the old rhineback aerodrome. Great place to see these ww1 airplanes in action. They have several replicas flying! A rotary engine sounds like a machine gun.
we've been there several times and taken flights in a biplane which I seem to recall was called the Standard - it was black and orange. You sit in a 4 seater cockpit directly in front of the pilot and behind the engine wearing a little cloth Snoopy head piece. The flights are low and slow and absolutely marvelous, as are the daily air shows and the museum barns. Highly recommended. And, yes - those rotaries with the on/off switch instead of a throttle sound like they are constantly stalling.
"The only effective lubricant for the rotary engine was castor oil. As the huge mass of engine whirled around, spewing out a spray of castor oil, pilots and ground crew complained not only of the smell but of the fact that it affected their digestive systems." The life of a First World War pilot was hard but their bowls were softened.
They were 2 stroke engines, they didn't leak oil, they burnt it in a total loss lubrication system, there were no exhaust pipes, exhaust gas and unburnt oil was just discharged from the outlet ports, fuel/oil mixture was fed into the crankcase and then drawn up into the cylinder heads, there was no throttle, the on,y way to control the power of the engine was to intermittently switch off the ignition, castor oil was used because it was cheap and easily dissolved into the petrol.
Pretty cool how both ww1 and ww2 had a really iconic and balanced matchup between a British and German fighter, Camel and Dr.1 in the first, with the Spitfire and Bf 109 in the second.
That's mildly historical indeed, reality is as always a bit more complex as a number of French types more than held their own in the fray of WWI, as did American and Soviet types in WWII.
I’d say the Fw190 during WW2 also counts. The Bf109 got outclassed by the Spitfire by mid war, and never really recovered (fundamentally it was just an older design), so the Fw190 took over as the really dangerous adversary, while the Bf109 was relegated to bomber hunting (essentially becoming the equivalent of the Hurricane during the Battle of Britain). They should really have phased out the Bf109, but they kept churning them out because of internal politics (basically Albert Speer got to look really good by saying he’d produced loads of aircraft, never mind that they were completely obsolete and they had neither the fuel or pilots to use them effectively).
@@schmitty1944 That is interesting, but those are WW2 German claims. Which are... Questionable. It was a target rich environment, so I don't doubt they had the largest number of aces, and the most successful ones. But between their habits of attributing an entire squadron's victories to its leader, and just making up victories, I'd take those numbers with a pinch of salt. I'd also note that the really high numbers were usually accrewed on the Eastern front, which got proportionally less Fw190s, because they were facing worse aircraft.
My dad built a 1/4 scale RC model of the Camel back in the 70’s. I don’t believe he ever flew it as he was so proud of the build and he had plenty of others to fly that he didn’t mind if they got banged up. My brother still has it and has it hung from the ceiling at his home.
Modeler here: I build in 1/72 scale so I don't worry about replicating the flat RAF wire. I just use elastic line that's about 3 or 4 thousandths of an inch unstretched. There are some photo etched wire stets made to replicate the RAF wire but I don't like it, it's too hard to get it to look taught. I don't even bother to try and make the doubled flying wires, I just use a single strand. I can't get the doubled wire to look regular enough in spacing and I think uneven spacing looks worse than a single wire. Bigger scale builders go these same routes, plus, sometimes they'll use stretched rectangular plastic strip. An interesting feature of heat stretching geometric shapes, is, they retain their shape when you stretch it, it just gets thinner. If you take a piece of styrene strip about 10x40 thousandths, heat it over a flame (very carefully) until it softens, and then pull the two ends apart, the plastic will stretch. The more you stretch, the thinner it gets. By controlling the stretch you can achieve any dimension you want and it will retain the 1x4 proportions. That's pretty much a "master modeler" technique that I don't think I'll ever try. It works with tubes and hex shaped rod too. You can make thinner tubes or hexes by heat stretching.
I built the 1/16 scale sopwith camel, wood and metal model from ModelExpo. Very fine model indeed being a scale replica. They use thread for all rigging. I follow the directions. At the end of the day it is a model.....
It has been awhile, but I recall it was the "Royal Guardsmen" whom sang the Snoopy song "... the bloody Red Barron of Germany". Santa Rosa named the airport in honor of the creator, one of their favorite residents - it was a "cool" when his children ordered a pizza (mid 70's) and drove the Deno to Round Table to pick it up. Great as always, thank you.
I flew a Sopwith at the age of about 5 in 1985. It starred in one of the earlier PC games with horrible graphics and sound, yet I fondly remember stalling and crashing!
@@jmackmcneill I played that game a lot. You needed a stick and rudder pedals. I miss the old Sierra On-Line where you flew against other folks. I had that hammerhead stall down to a science with the Camel there. But in both games, my favorite was the Pup. It flew so well.
@@jmackmcneill Hah I wish! Red Baron was a good game from 1990, when 386 computers could sort of do graphics, sort of do sound and if you were lucky good gameplay as well. I'm talking about 1984's Sopwith, which for the time was the best game I had, because it was the only one.. If you search 1984 Sopwith Dos you will find some videos about it. :)
@@jmackmcneillI had Red Baron in about 2000, and even with a stick it was hard to fly the planes. I would try to dogfight and would get shot down from behind almost every time, and rarely even could get a glimpse of an enemy plane. I ditched it for MS Combat Flight Simulator.
Good video. Interviewed many, many years later in the 1980s, Tom Sopwith specifically noted the effort to keep the weights concentrated in a close space on the Camel. Another development that helped defeat the Albatros fighters was the Constantinesco synchronizer which aided rate of fire and reliability from the Vickers guns in 1917-18. Going from a single gun Pup with the old synchronizer to a Constantinesco dual gun on the Camel would have been a big jump for an allied airman.
I could be wrong, but I've always had the notion that rotary engines were initially developed, at least in part as a weight saving measure. Most piston engines have a heavy flywheel bolted onto one end of the crankshaft. To save weight, engine designers came up with the idea of rotating the cylinder block and crankcase, in effect making the engine the flywheel and doing away with the separate flywheel. This worked well for the relatively small early engines. As engines got bigger and heavier, gyroscopic effects became more marked, until the weight saving was outweighed by the effect of gyroscopic progression, as well as the other disadvantages mentioned in the video.
Amazing video, looking forward to more WW I content. I think your narration is great because it is very balanced: an objective gaze on the problems of engineering through time. Can't wait for the next one!
I once wrote a procedure on turning left in the DR1 on the old Rise of Flight forums, its a WW1 flight sim. It basically went as such....Step one start your roll to the left, step two apply left rudder to start the nose in a downward attitude, and three haul back on the stick and apply more left rudder. The left rudder forces the nose towards the ground and helps counteract the procession.
While you're in there, you might test out the firing tactic that Henry Forster taught me: if you 'walk' the rudder sharply side to side, the gyro torque of a rotary will nod the aircraft slightly in proportion. This will increase and decrease a 'cone of fire' from the gun(s) without having to steer the point of aim while shooting...
@@wizlish yeah it will oscillate. Whats scary is while learning that you can sometimes completely roll over if you don’t give opposite aileron or if you have a heavy foot on your pedals.
Yeah, he pointed out that you used sharp jabs against the pedals, so high but very short deflection of the rudder, and a fast enough oscillation that the actual yaw never built up substantially before it was 'reversed out' You would NOT do this if you were anywhere near a stall on either wing, so presumably you'd be diving 'out of the sun' or not in a hard turn. I wonder if you'd learn to fly a Camel so you'd preferentially stall the left wing first, so the old sailplane trick of rudder-turning away from the stalling wing would also torque the fuselage nose-down...
@@charlesmartin1121 I wouldn't be surprised if the SPAD isn't as good as we hope or imagine. Kind of like "don't meet your heros in real life". Personally, I like the real peeks behind the curtains, warts and all.
@@charlesmartin1121 exactly. Greg seems to try to be as objective unbiased as possible. Another thing he does so well is bring huge amounts of context.
Between the wars, a couple of guys did tours of New Zealand towns in a pair of trainer planes, my dad and his brother got a ride in them. Dad said they were Sopwith twin seaters. My uncle got the flying bug, but lessons were too expensive. We didn't have much of an air-force until closer to WW2, but he did get to fly . . . gunner in a Halifax then a Lanc, then M.I.A. on the way back from one of the Kiel raids trying for Tirpitz.
Thank you for pointing out the Clerget was the most often used engine. So many F1 replicas are fitted with the Gnome Monosoupape as in the Neiuport 28. As you are an expert aero/auto engine guy, please consider doing a rotary enigine comparison video. I'd especially like to find out about the LeRhone 9R (180 BHP?) that was slated for the "Super" Nieuport 28 with 600 ordered by the USAS in 1918 and cancelled with the Armistice. ---From what I understand, as with the 147th Aero Squadron's Nie 28's, the new "Super" had all the "breakaway" mainplane leading edge trouble, fatiguing copper fuel line/tank etc. resolved.
A modern example of large gyroscopic forces on an airplane is a single seat Pitts biplane with 180 hp and metal prop. The gyroscopic forces are particularly evident on takeoff roll when you raise the tail with forward stick. This causes the aircraft to yaw which requires immediate rudder input to stay on the runway. The prop wash over the rudder also plays a factor but the gyroscopic forces are very evident with the aircraft pitch change.
My father flew one. It was only really safe to make turns to port until a higher airspeed was attained. At take off and landing, the engine was pulsed on and off to allow for better control at lower speeds. The guns jammed frequently until brass was eliminated (different coefficients of expansion). The pilots were mostly teenagers, and a large number failed to survive training and get into battle.
I SAY thank you,Greg..a unbelievable simple yet specific analysis of Aircraft..You present this so someone like me can understand the content, and a aeronautical engineer will not be insulted!! KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK!!!!!!
A very good video Greg. I used to think it was torque caused by the rotary engine that made the Camel so good in the turn, but you explained it so well. Loved the refrence to Snoopy also!
I read a biography of Eddie Rickenbacker, America's top ace in WW1 While his fellow pilots would go out on the town, he'd stay back at his base, testing the bullets for his machine guns. He'd take one out of the belt, test it in mold (for want of a better term) that verified that the round would fit properly in the machine gun. He'd find about 20 or so duds, bullets that would jam the machine guns when fired.
This is great info as a player of all planes in IL-2 Sturmovik - I've always wondered why the Fw190A (others too, but I always noticed this one in particular) will require lots off hard left rudder when pulling back on the stick (pitching up). It also helps me understand about why planes like the Fokker Dr.1 need to enter a roll with both aileron and rudder.
Thanks. I do have a lot more to say about the Camel and other WW1 airplanes. I'll see how this one does before I commit to anything. Next video is the Mosquito F.B. VI as a bomber. It's one I have really been wanting to make.
Current issue of Cross and Cockade magazine, published by Great War Aviation Society has article about Camel, focusing on how difficult it was to fly. The author had access to interviews with Camel pilots that had been done in 1960s. Consensus was that it wasn’t particularly difficult to fly for an experienced pilot. Takeoffs were the trickiest from a gyroscopic perspective. Now, we have to remember that these pilots had experience with rotary engines, as the Pup was used as a trainer. Also, pilots were used to flying this type of aircraft- you can’t fly it hands-off like modern aircraft.
Consider that the primary training aircraft used for British training up to about 1916 was the Maurice Farman MF7 Longhorn, which was rife with weird and quirky handling as well as being slower than anything they were training to fly. There was also a mix of RAF BE2 and some Sopwith two seater trainers.. Up until they decided that the AVRO 504 with it's generous tail arm and somewhat innocuous handling was to be changed over to in the mid 1917's. It gave you a gentle taste of gyro precession and rotary engine operation procedures and they installed bosun's tubes so the trainee could be shouted at when he made a mistake.
Thanks Greg! Great video! It really helped me appreciate the Camel, as well as to better understand how the rotary engine affected the flight characteristics of the aircraft and why the rotary fell out of favor. It all makes sense now.
You’re correct, it was a Vickers gunner named Cedric Popkin, and the round entered his right armpit and exited near his left nipple. Brown, the pilot pursuing Richthofen, was directly behind, making that fatal round trajectory impossible.
@@banzi403 because Richthofen was chasing another Camel at low level, the Vickers gunner, Popkin, spotted Richthofen chasing that Camel with Brown following from behind. Richthofen died in a chase for his 81st kill, not a turning fight. th-cam.com/video/jYeo0NucVr0/w-d-xo.htmlsi=7AsDElkrPZO2Lnne
@@Xeno1001 doesn't make it impossible the shot came from brown. "who shot down the red baron?" Is a question that shows everything wrong with the interweb.
Fantastic.... the cowling/gun heat issue is a bit of a mystery for me too. Maybe someone realised that increased heat = reduced viscosity on the gun lubricants and better reliability, but that doent explain why this is the only example
I learned about that goofy rotary engine from a warplane documentary on PBS. Holy centrifugal forces, Batman! Sounds difficult to wrangle. I've only just started the video as I'm writing this. Looking forward to learning more about it.
Oh, side note, I wonder what would happen for a multi engine plane using these rotary engines. Would the gyroscopic forces cancel out if the plane had two opposing rotation engines? Would the airframes and wings have internal stresses greater than normal? That'd be a fun thing to think about if I was smarter. Lol
If they counter rotated then yes, they would cancel each other out. To my knowledge, such a plane has never been built, meaning a twin engine plane with counter rotating rotary engines.
@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles I can imagine that once the performance of a twin engine plane was required, the metallurgy would've also sufficiently improved to allow for radial engines instead. Anyway, fascinating video as always. I like the way you visualized gyroscopic precession.
My great-uncle flew the Camel, and most of his 11.5 victories (1918) were over Fokker D-VII 's. They (Canadians) trained near Ft. Worth, USA as it was winter.
It might have been nice (follow up video?) to show the Camel's tendencies using a flight sim. Also, the key parts of the Camel would fit inside my desk. It is intriguing to think about sitting inside my desk at 10,000 feet shooting at an Albatros D.V.
Thanks Greg. I am familiar with the theories behind flight controls, lift, thrust, etc., but I enjoy learning about complications behind it. People often forget that there is more to flying than stick and pedals.
I got to crawl over one of those WW1 rotarys in the Melbourne museum. It had inlet valves in the piston crowns and one exhaust valve in each head. I assumed the fuel oil mixture was sucked into the crankcase, sort of like a two stroke.
Correct, leading to very little engine throttle control, idle or full power mainly. Intermediate power settings were achieved by blipping the engine, in other words turning off the ignition momentarily.
@@chrisknight6884 The high rotating mass of a rotary meant it would continue to spin when "blipped" momentarily and then restart. Of course when "blipped" it would pass unburned fuel that often ignited when the engine restarted.
Wonderful video on the Camel. Funny you mention Snoopy, it's the reason I heard of the Camel and the reason it became my favorite WWI fighter. The SPAD VIII with Eddie Rickenbacker was another favorite. I eventually ended up with a VK Newport 17 RC aircraft that was built in the 70's by some Navy Contract worker. It was given to me in the 80's and I rebuilt it. It had Lafayette Escadrille markings on it with the Sioux Chief on the side. I routinely flew in the mid 80's at the NAS Whidbey Is. OLF (Outlying Landing Field) the US Navy uses for landing practice. That's when the club was allowed to fly there in the 80's off the southern taxi ways. I still have the VK Newport 17 hanging from my bedroom ceiling. That model is about 50 years old now. LOL Thanks again for the great video. Best Wishes & Blessings. Keith Noneya
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The Camel first flew 102 years after the Battle of Waterloo. We are now 107 years from the Camels first flight.
Wow, time flies.
One thing about visiting Europe; there seem to be battlefields everywhere. I would encourage anyone to visit.. to think about all the suffering, and to learn and ponder about the history.
People generaly don´t think about it that way. But it was well into the industrial revolution. No only was the first generation steam engine old news by then (the Newcomen engines) also the second gen (the watt engine) was alreddy 40 years old, and the third gen steam engine, the high pressure steam engine was already demonstrated more than a decade earlier.
Its kind of misleading to call the period from 1712 to 1880 for the first industrial revolution and the 1880 to 1914 the second industrial revolution. Specially since the stationary engine period was very different from the mobile engine period
@@m.e.345actually if you visit Britain you can find endless historical battlefields in fact the other side of the hill where I spent my youth were two suspicious humps labelled on the Ordnance Survey 'Battlebury', as yet uninvestigated by archeology.
@@m.e.345 Visitors should not miss out making a trip to the Shuttleworth Collection near Biggleswade, Bedfordshire.
The best factoid about the rotary engines was they were lubricated with Castor oil...which was thrown back at the pilot as it flew. They were able to determine if the engine was getting enough oil from the sheen on the wing and it was said that upon landing the Crew Chief would run out with a jigger of booze to give to the pilot. This was to cut the Castor oil from his throat and he'd then make a hasty retreat to the head as the oil has a real impact on your ability to not crap yourself. Flying back then wasn't the glamorous thing as portrayed today in the movies...it was cold, hard and uncomfortable business.
I heard this on a PBS show focusing on this era of fighter aircraft.
I remember building a Sopwith Camel model and the prop was fixed directly to the engine, and I kept thinking “That’s obviously wrong.”. That lead me to learning about the “rotary” engine it had.
And from castor oil we get the famous oil brand Castrol.
Castor beans contain the cumulative poison ricin (as does rapeseed). We don't dose ourselves with castor oil anymore, but gobble down Canola.
@@zetectic7968 20W-50 Castrol was the only oil I used with my air-cooled Ghia.
They love telling that story at Rhinebeck - where you can actually see a Pup, Camel, Avro actually flying on vintage rotaries! But I never heard the jigger of booze anecdote... makes sense, though! Thanks for that... and yea. Not only was flying then terrifying, but a truly a miserable experience for the poor pilots.
In case anyone is interested, the RAF in 'RAF wire' stands for Royal Aircraft Factory, not Royal Air Force.
And they made the S.E.5 and S.E.5a fighters. Strangely a full scale production fighter had the name: Scout Experimental (S.E. stands for that). So, the Royal Flying Corps fought with experimental aircrafts, right? 😄
Guessed that.
@@Cuccos19 BE2 FE2B SE5 RE8. Yep.
Its mentioned in Biggles books.
@@soapbubblefun I( only read Biggles Fly's Undone.
This is one of the very few TH-cam channels where not only are the comments worth reading, they're often almost as good as the video. Very informative stuff here. My thanks to all who contributed.
As an auto mechanic I find watching radial engine crankshafts in motion absolutely hypnotizing. I never have seen a video of this that was long enough for me. Something that interesting deserves at least a few minutes of viewing.
You should do a search on the Salmson water cooled radials of WWI, they had a fascinating solution for the normally used master connecting rod of later fixed radials.
@@tauncfester3022interesting! I did not know about this engine.
@@Jbroker404 It was among one of the most commonly fielded French Obs and Bomber powerplants in WWI. Nearly all of the Voisin LA3 and later pushers and the Salmson A2 late war obs bomber used by both the French and the American Expeditionary air forces.
@@tauncfester3022Saw a Salmson radial in the Museo Storico Aeronautica Militare in Italy. It had a diagram explaining the Canton-Unne mechanism used in place of a master rod. I had to stare at the diagram for a long time before I could understand how it worked. MUSAM also has the Macchi MC72 float plane which set the world’s speed record of 441 mph in 1934. It still holds the record for propeller powered seaplanes.
@@tauncfester3022
I imagine that was the solution where a stationary gear in the crank case was part of a gear train that engaged a gear on the rod journal. This keeps the rod gear stationary in that it maintains the correct relationship to allow the use of all link rods with no master rod. Nordberg Corporation of Milwaukee used the same solution on an 11 cylinder stationary radial engine used for generating and pumping stations. 14" bore and stroke for 23,607ci. Plus they had a 12 cylinder with an even more novel method of maintaining the rod carrier of their own invention.
RFC pilots used to joke that it offered the choice between "a wooden cross, the Red Cross, or a Victoria Cross"
The great stunt pilot Frank Tallman had a Camel in his collection that he restored and flew at many military shows and civilian events. He mentioned how cramped the cockpit was for his 6'1" frame and as far as the sensitivity of the controls he said "Don't think I ever got out of a Camel after being airborne without buckets of perspiration and considerable gratitude that I had gotten the little girl home without breaking her into splinters!" If a pilot of Tallman's caliber got that nervous flying one; imagine what it must have been like for many of the ham-handed RFC trainees trying to solo in a Camel.
I still have Frank Tallman's book "Flying the Old Planes" that I bought as a kid in the 1970s. It was fun to pull it out and reread the chapter on the Camel.
@briandeaton3550 I have read that book and highly recommend.
Apart from the gyroscopic precession I believe I've read that as it had no trim tabs like modern aircraft and rearward force on the control column in straight and level flight was needed. It must've been a right little piggy to fly, I also believe I read somewhere that it killed more pilots in training than it did in combat although I can't vouch for that.
The various engines used in the Camel also had an effect of pilot fatigue. The early 1917 Camels with the late LeRhone and 130 hp Clerget 9b were rather "nicer" to fly if a little climb limited. The Gnome 160 Monosupape (monovalve..) was a little heavier in gyro-precession, torque, extremely noisy, soaked everything in it's Castor oil haze and rather coarse in it's clockwork ignition/speed controls. The later Clerget/Bently's were an improvement on the Gnome, The Gnome is the engine you see flying most of the present day replica and preserved Camels. It's the engine who's exhaust noise is mostly a wall of white noise with the ignition "couping" sputtering partial "throttle" settings. Yeah I would think a two hour patrol behind that lump would be worse than the earlier engines
It's amazing to me the difference in stature, especially in "western" countries, of an average male changed in the 100 years between 1914 and 2014. I was doing some research into acquiring a vintage US army uniform from WW I, with a view toward possibly wearing it during "Wild Bunch" shooting matches. I rapidly found out that was never going to happen, as the average US infantryman in WW I was approximately 5' 4" tall, with a 26-28" waist, and weighed between 120 and 135 pounds. At 6' tall and 195 pounds, there was no vintage uniform that was going to fit me. I would have to have a replica uniform made. I never did. But it speaks to why Mr. Tallman had a hard time getting into and out of a Camel.
Fascinating!
Just as an aside, my step-grandfather flew the Avro 504k as a reconnaissance pilot. He crashed after his 4-5th (not sure) mission over Belgium and we still have the joystick.
As the story goes, he got lost when coming back across the channel having fallen asleep momentarily during the crossing back due to exhaustion- followed the wrong railway line (the navigational aid they used) when he reached the coast, and headed north by accident. Ran out of fuel and crash landed in a field in Essex and was invalided out of the war. He was only 19! Lived to 1984.
@@valleywoodstudio7345 504k was a training aircraft, never flew in Belgium or France, some were pushed into service as home defence fighters against zeppelins.
@@jeremyfoster6942 Interesting - just going on my memories of what he said! I can send you a picture of the joystick as i may be misremembering the aircraft - it was before 1984 after all. But he was definitely a reconnaissance pilot and crashed on the wayback after running out of fuel and getting lost.
@@valleywoodstudio7345maybe he crashed in france/ Belgium? It would be unlikely for a reconnaissance aircraft to cross the Channel considering the front lines were many miles east of the continental Channel ports, which were in allied hands throughout the duration of the war
@@jeremyfoster6942 I'm going on memory here (40 years!) but we do know he was returning across the channel and got lost (he said because he nodded off, but he may have been joking!) and followed the wrong railway line which was the point of navigational reference and crashed in Essex - "flipped over a hedge in a farmers field" to paraphrase!. He also said his role was reconnaissance. Maybe this was a courier mission this time - of course all anecdotal. I think it occurred in 1917 as he was 19 then. He got the joystick retrieved from the wreck and kept it by his seat all his life.
Oh come on.
These guys know much better than you. They are on the internet.
A practical thing about Greg's videos is that I can comfortably press thumb up button before I watch the video to the end.
That's quite a compliment. Thank you.
That is a big compliment and good advice for me. Thanks, i am signing in too.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobilesPersonally, I have no trouble with longer videos, as my main interest is to have the most information as possible... Lazy people could either skip the video or just look for "shorts"...
I am here to LEARN, UNDERSTAND, DIGEST, and MAKE ME THINK abundantly after carefully watching every Greg video.
(BTW, the ones on the Fw-190 are my most enjoyed ones, but up to now, I surely enjoy every one), sincerely. A.M. Claussen.
@@alfredomarquez9777 I agree. I enjoy the longer video aswell. I can kick back and relax and learn while getting ready to goto sleep,
I love the current focus on WW1 era planes.
One of the other dangerous traits of Rotary - engined fighters: no throttle. Gads! Ya basically run 'em with a kill switch.
They had no throttle?
@@HDSMEcorrect.
If you've not yet read VM Yeates' book Winged Victory, it's a must-get. Yeates was a WW1 Camel pilot, and the book is full of incredible and hilarious notes on what it was like to fly a Camel:
"Camels were wonderful fliers when you had got used to them, which took about three months of hard flying. At the end of that time you were either dead, a nervous wreck, or the hell of a pilot and a terror to Huns, who were more unwilling to attack Camels than any other sort of machine except perhaps Bristol Fighters. But then Bristol Fighters weren't fair. They combined the advantages of a scout with those of a two-seater. Huns preferred fighting SEs which were stationary engined scouts more like themselves, for the Germans were not using rotary engines except for their exotic triplanes, and the standard Hun scout was the very orthodox Albatross. They knew where they were with SEs, which obeyed the laws of flight and did as properly stabilized aeroplanes ought to do. If you shot at one, allowing correctly for its speed, you would hit it: it would be going the way it looked as if it were going, following its nose. But not so a Camel. A Camel might be going sideways or flat-spinning, or going in any direction except straight backwards. A Camel in danger would do the most queer things, you never knew what next, especially if the pilot was Tom Cundall. And in the more legitimate matter of vertical turns, nothing in the skies could follow in so tight a circle, so that, theoretically speaking, all you had to do when caught miles from home by dozens of Huns was to go into a vertical bank and keep on turning to the right until the Huns got hungry and went down to their black bread and sauerkraut, or it got dark: the difficulty was that you might run out of petrol and have to shoot them all down on the reserve tank, so that it might be as well to shoot them all down at once, as recommended in patriotic circles."
And so on - brilliantly well written.
Hey, what about Biggles? 😇😇
the peak of the British Empire !
after we U.S.ians left, but are Allies today
Great book, and much in demand during WW2
One of my absolute favourite books, and as you say, very well-written indeed, and by a pilot who'd logged 248 hours of combat flying in Camels on the Western Front.
Great book indeed.
Snoopy and Biggles: what more can you ask of a plane?
Algy and ginger?
Snoopy's kennel never burst into flames, sending Snoopy screaming (howling) as he burnt to the ground. Funny how we gloss over horrific deaths.
How did u commented 14 hrs ago?
@@RemusKingOfRome To be fair, we do that with war in general. It really is egregious mass murder where young men are forced to kill and maim other young men they don't know and would likely be friends with under normal circumstances. But Peanuts was a very clever and endearing cartoon strip. So we will cut Charles Schulz some slack.
@@r.s.i8753the video was likely released early for patrons who support Greg
Until this video wrapped up, I didn't realize how much I appreciated listening to a good narrator! YT is full of pieces hosted by readerbots (and those who speak like bots), people who don't know how to pronounce key terms, or struggle with English. This was very educational, and not padded with unrelated images - one of the banes of many, many vids. Enjoyed this very much, particularly as my grandfather knew the planes of the era, being an RFC back-seater in R.E. 8s!
Regarding modellers and flat RAF wire: a common method is to use a flat elastic thread. If you make sure it isn’t twisted it looks really nice. Having built a Bristol Fighter, Camel and a Felixstowe flying boat (derived from the big Curtiss designs) rigged this way I can confirm it’s also a massive pain!
Spot on, modellers often use Prim knitting elastic which is flat. We can also get rigging wires in photo etch. That’s more difficult to get the right fit and is easily damaged.
The up side on the flat wires is that they don’t use turnbuckles. They were made in approximately the correct length and had screws at each end. To tighten or loosen them the riggers would turn the screws at each end.
I fly giant-scale WWI models. For my 1/3 scale Sopwith Pup, I have functional flying wires exactly like the original. Currently I'm using braided steel wire silver soldered onto clevises, but I've got a big spool of 1/3 scale RAF flying wire from - I think - Proctor - that I intend to install when I get around to it! But it's a major hassle to work with... I only use the elastic for the occasional non-functional wire on some of my smaller models, like my 84" Eindecker.
I've been able to buy Kevlar tow thread which is wound on the bobbin and has a sort of flattish profile. I build smaller WWI RC models and use working rigging. There's this older, what used to be called Dacron thread used for Cox control line models is pretty good as a substitute when your model is 1/12" scale, build in lightness. Most of my 1/12 scale WWI models weigh less than 250 grams.
Used to have a local wire rope manufacturer. In the 1980s they were still producing limited runs of wire for aircraft with a sort of airfoil section. Using the same drawing and rolling dies they had been using since the WW1 era or shortly after that. MacWhyte Wire Rope
My great grandmother was born in the 1880's and lived well past man landing on the moon. As a child, I was fascinated to listen to her stories from horse and buggy days up through both world wars culminating with the space program.
I asked my mother, born 1920, if, as a girl she would run out to look at a biplane when it flew over. She said, "when I was a kid we ran out to see a car when it went by."
My Grsndma too. Went from horse and cart 1883 to man on the moon. She died about 1973
My grandfather born 1900 died 2002. Went from no cars at all gas lights on the streets and in the houses to the modern world. Didn't get an indoor toilet until the 1980s and used a tin bath in front of the fire until then.
@@John-k6f9k have to be a dick?
That 48 years between aircraft makes me think of my great grandpa, born 1903, died 1993. In his lifetime he went from seeing Wright Flyers to biplanes, a world war, radio invented, barnstorming, an Allis Challmer tractor, depression, another world war, a new Ford 8N, telephones, another war, television, another war, his first airplane flight in a DC-3, nukes, the adoption of jet aircraft, the Mercury & Gemini flights, sound barrier broken, another war, landing on the moon, color tv, his first international flight (to Japan to see me after birth), a new Ford 8N, Skylab, the 747, computers at home, 200 years!, Space Shuttle, MTV, another Ford 8N, sell the farm, old folks home, stealth, another war, we inherit the Ford 8N.
That really had to be a period of near wizardry, watching the Wright Flyer turn into a Space Shuttle and stealth. Yet that trusty 8N, one a Jubilee, was constant, some things don’t need improvement.
The only improvement an 8N needs is to put a slipper on the PTO shaft when running a Brush Hog.😳
Spent many an hour on one.
@@sadwingsraging3044 definitely agreed on the PTO. Growing up we had 30 acres, 15 of it was “mowable” according to mom, that meant a whole lot of time with the bush hog. Put on the Walkman and drive lines & loops for hours on end. Loved that tractor, still do, and SO easy to work on.
When my grandparents were older I used to drive our tractor, another 8N (of course), over to their house to help plow, disc & plant in the spring. Was like a 15-20 minute drive in a car, a good hour plus on the tractor. Was 14 and at the time that was the legal age to drive a farm implement on the road in Ohio. Keep in mind this was VERY rural Ohio, country roads, and only township police which consisted of 3 of them, sharing 1 car.
I hope there’s kids out there that still get to grow up that way.
@c1ph3rpunk yep. Original Brush Hog grandpa had was an old solid blade instead of a swing out stump jumper type common today.
That thing would push you right into a tree or ditch if you were foolish enough to get yourself into a bind by not thinking ahead when cutting.
I was so glad when grandpa got a slipper for that PTO.
I guess I was the first one to actually read the manual for her when I took the time to set up the hydraulics to where I could have the tractor running 1/4 throttle out of gear but the PTO engaged with the Brush Hog spinning and you could lift the entire Brush Hog with just one arm lifting it up.
Made it sooooo much easier when crossing water bar/drainage ditching after I set that up right.
Kids these days...😑 All of them should know the proper meaning of the word hoe... Before school, after school till almost dark and even on the weekends if the conditions were inducive to growing weeds you were in that garden. Hard work but man we ate good fresh foods and fruits.
Grandma standing on the back porch saying "That one" and me having to chase that damn chicken down. "That one" wasn't always the one that made it into the Chicken Stew it took me _years_ to re-create off of memory on how it tasted!
🥄😋🍲 good times.
My grandmother Emma, of happy memory was born in 1886, by 1914 was a young woman with a daughter & lived from before the era of the internal combustion engine to the time of Concorde & the moon landings - what an extraordinary century & life!
@@sadwingsraging3044 I still can’t eat store bought greenhouse tomatoes, they just don’t taste the same, I’ll only eat them in season when I can get them fresh. Same at our house, we had more fresh food than any city folk around me today can really fathom. And canning… All the time spent canning but come January, tomato sauce, green beans, mmmm.
Funny one, dad was unemployed one year, think it was ‘85, and had this bright idea to plant several acres of sweet corn to sell. Well, after doing the usual he gets a job, in another state, and leaves it to me. Was hella work but all but paid for my first car that year, a ‘70 Mustang Mach I. Think I paid like $800 for it, that was a lot of “dollar a dozen” sweet corn.
Dollar a dozen, geez that sounds weird.
On guns taken from The Red Barons crashed plane you can see the tubes fitted to draw engine hot air to the machine guns working parts.
That's fascinating. I knew someone in the comments would know how that was done. Good job Edward.
Norman Franks has shown Von Richtofen had one dysfunctional gun, the other firing single shots, at the he was shot down (indisputably by ground fire).
The better French fighter pilot aces, the ones flying the Nieuport Bebe/17 and other types with the Lewis guns mounted on their upper wing, had a thing about being very precise and calculating, so they would only fire their gun a few rounds to make a kill. Charles Nungesser was famous for his using as little ammo as possible.
Only if they surprised the enemy by flying up into their blind spot. In a classic dogfight, it was no holds.
@@tauncfester3022 Early on there was an Englishman who went up with a hunting rifle but eventually he was machine gunned.
Hi Greg, yes the directional bracing RAF wires are almost more like straps. I was just admiring it on the Camel and the Udvar-Hazy branch of the Smithsonian Air & Space museum recently. If I can find a good picture I will send it to you. Most of us just modelers just use the elastic "Easyline' because the scale is so small the RAF wire becomes hard to appreciate. That said, there are photoetched brass kits for RAF wire that are flat to simulate RAF wire properties. That is SO much fun at 1/72 scale but, it you can pull it off, you can have a museum grade model when you are done. You just need steady hands, a powerful opti-visor, good tools, good lighting and the patience of a monk. 😁
Thanks Max. The modelers usually have this stuff figured out.
Great video. As a retired aeronautical engoneer I appreciated the detail especially regarding gyro precession moments acting in pitch and yaw.
As a air force vet i recommend this channel as the best all around channel on TH-cam for everything in antique aircraft and cars. This channel came up while I was looking at early Italian cars. Since I work on Italian cars. I haven't been interested in early aircraft but that changed after finding this awesome channel. The information is easy to understand and informative and ranks as one of my four favorite channels along with nile red, styro pyro, explosions and fire. I just wish it had shown up under recommendations years ago so I don't spend hours that I should be sleeping instead of binge watching this channel.
Excellent presentation, well pitched and paced. Thank you.
An excellent video, I have heard the argument about the Camel's maneuverability for years but to hear a sound aerodynamic explanation of the ups and downside of the aircraft was enlightening. Ty!
thanx Greg. I rarely comment on videos, but as a 70 year old aviation nut, a pilot, and the grandson of a WW1 vet in the US Army Air Service, this is a subject i have often wondered about I do wish you had talked about the throttle....i believe rotaries ran flat out all the time, unless the pilot cut ignition to the cylinders
Correct.
Just because it works doesn't mean it isn't a damn fool idea
Not really on point, but I need to highly recommend a book called 'No Parachute' by Arthur Gould Lee. By his own admission a middling Pup pilot in 1917, the book is a mix of his diary and letters home. The Camel enters into it because of how envious he is of the twin machine guns. There are also plenty of examples of his gun freezing up on him, which he handled by a combination of violence and getting to lower altitude where it was warmer.
I very much agree. I read it once about 18 years ago and I've listened to the audiobook twice. You've reminded me: time to listen yet again.
Utterly bizarre the brass refused to issue parachutes to pilots. Wonder if a pilot could buy & use his own ?
@@gulicny3999I don’t think so. I’ve read that “The Brass” believed parachutes “would encourage cowardice!” If that’s true it’s appalling!
@@donyoung1384 I believe that got thrown in as an additional reason, but the main cause was that parachutes were far too bulky for most of the war. Check out the fittings on observation balloons to see what I mean.
Thanks as ever, Greg. The best WW1 novel of war in the air is often held to be Winged Victory by V M Yeates, an old Camel pilot and it's plainly fictionalised reality. Published in 1934, the year he died, it was out of print in 1940 but copies were then fetching £5 among RAF fighter pilots. Yeates stressed the basic instability of the Camel, which seems to have made it all the more responsive, and that it was a touch more difficult to shoot down as it was rarely pointing the way it was going. At least one WW2 RAF ace said that he trimmed his aircraft to fly a bit crabwise in combat for just that reason.
Glad to find another Yeates fan! I'll second the recommendation, Greg - if you've never read it you have a treat in store. It's a good novel as well as technically interesting. Try to find the unabridged version (there was a bowdlerized version published by Consul Books in the 1960's), such as that in the Echoes of War series published by Buchan and Enright.
I'll third the recommendation. It's an outstanding account of what it must have been like for young men to have been thrust into this situation and to have to deal with everything that was thrown at them. The unvarnished detail of daily life is ultimately very moving.
Goshawk Squadron by Derek Robinson is another bleak , if fictional , account of the life of a WWI pilot .
McCudden had his memoirs published after his demise. Good reading also.
@@korolev-musictodriveby6583 I love both books.
Great documentary - thanks. Tommy Sopwith used to live just 10 miles from me near Winchester. He went on to form Hawker and was still active within Hawker Siddeley even until 1980, when he was 92. He lived to be 101, so quite a life.
There is an online interview with Thomas Sopwith, done some time in the 1970s, he talks about pre-WW1 to The Hawker Harrier, it's on You Tube.
Cool, I'll check that out. The Camel, the Hurricane, and the Harrier. What an absolute legend. And of course, after WWI he was given a CBE... and then bankrupted for "excess war profits" by His Majesty's Government. Who were salty over the price tag of a war started by the King's first cousin Kaiser Wilhelm.
@@petewood2350 BBC radio in the 70s made a documentary "Icarus with an Oil Can" about the early days of flight with interviews with surviving pioneers like Thomas Sopwith.
I remember seeing a rotary aeroplane engine in a museum. I was stunned not only how it worked, but also by how large it was.
Sir, you got an A Plus for this project! Loads of great information! Very enjoyable.
God damn Greg. You've explained gyroscopic forces better than my university professors and textbooks back in my university days
I admire your passion and vast expertise, and your no-nonsense way of dropping knowledge bombs. Thanks for sharing this info!
About having 4 vs 2 ailerons. Albatros, Spad, and even more the Nieuport (with specs closest to a Camel) were sesquiplanes, (1+1/2 planes) meaning the bottom wing is shorter (lengthwise) than the upper one. So bracing both wings together with struts left little area on the lower wing for ailerons. Top one had more area and span, allowing for more effective ailerons, and bypassing cable complications. Adjusting those 2x3 ailerons cables on a Sopwith triplane must have been a mechanics headache. Same idea applies to Fokker Dr1, which upper wing is longer and wider, and the only to sport ailerons, which consequentially are quite long.
About "RAF wires". You find elliptical (flattened) spokes on modern racing bicycles, which do seem to improve aerodynamics, while not compromising strength compared to conventional, cylindrical spokes.
I just became a Patreon member of this channel. My very 1st Patreon membership! It has always been one of my favorite arial warfare channels. Your vocal presentation is always spot on, informed, knowledgeable, and clear. What tipped the scale was that you never take 30 seconds too plead us to join...and instead offer this wide array of literature and pamphlets that we'd surely never have access to left to our own devices. Thank you Greg, keep up the excellent work!
Imagine, no oxygen mask, flying top patrol at nearly 20,000 feet. The good news is there was usually only fuel for and hour and a half. The rotarys had no throttle, just ignition cut, out for landing. Most WW1 pilots had a flask of brandy with them, helped with the cold, PTSD, added courage...., and of course tempered the laxitive they were inhaling from the rotary.
The camel did have a magneto switch that allowed it to cut out a few cylinders and still have a running engine. How pilots were able to fly the plane while inhaling the exhaust is beyond me. Plus, no parachute, as "a pilots job was to stick to his aeroplane"-Tough men!
@@JohnWaldron-cm7ce parachute were available though, and Ernst Udet did used one to save his life. It just weigh, or some unfounded fear of desertion that most not equipped with
20,000 feet? Please show us the source of that statement. Were you drunk when you wrote this?
@@HerbertTowers You need oxygen apparatus over 10,000 feet. WW1 planes rarely went that high.
@@stevekaczynski3793many people have flown significantly higher than 10000 feet without oxygen, even today 😀
The Sopwith Camel and the Bf 109 always seem to be somewhat synonymous to me. Both were lethal to their enemies in skilled hands...and equally lethal to their own inexperienced pilots. I think that's why both developed a cult following among ace pilots in their respective air forces - they were challenging to fly and not for the fainthearted, but they rewarded pilots who had the skill and the determination to master them. To learn to fly one well was a badge of honour.
Look at the narrow gear spread. Similar to bf109.
Narrow spread = unstable landings
@@davidtrindle6473 same as the spitfire - and 101 others planes.-
Wouldn't the Supermarine Spitfire be a better analog? The early models had some lethal problems for inexperienced pilots
@@davidtrindle6473
No more narrow than any other WW1 aircraft.
@@tauncfester3022 Not even remotely. One of the most back-handed compliments any German ever paid to the Spitfire (and the Hurricane) is that they were "childishly simple to fly, compared to our fighters". Like the Bf109, the Spitfire did have a narrow track undercarriage, which made ground handling a bit tricky. And, like all tail draggers, the view to the front with the tail down was very poor. But that's where the comparisons end. Allied pilots found the Spitfire to be a joy to fly. German pilots loved their Bf 109's...but there was a bit of pride in mastering a difficult mount in that.
Of course, the early Spitfires did have the negative G issue, due to their float carburettors...but that was more of an aggravation that might allow an enemy aircraft to escape, rather than one that would endanger their pilot. Bf 109's on the other hand, were very tricky to take-off and land and they could be challenging in flight as well. These issues were only exacerbated as the war progressed and the 109's got heavier. By contrast, Allied pilots found the Spitfire's handling qualities to be excellent, even early on.
Fantastically informative and entertaining as usual, thanks!
Forgot to mention, some guys use guitar stings. They are round but the are so small you can't really tell....unless you are a member of the holy order of rivet counters. Gaspatch actually makes turnbuckles but those take super patience...but man do they look good when you are done!
Thanks Maxs. I knew you would know. I tried to find a model video on your Channel of a Camel but didn't see one.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles
Take a look at Dan Smith. That's the channel name. He builds a lot of 1/33rd scale Card Models from European publishers. He generally does it with stretch rigging material, cyanoacrylate and kicker. He either does build series or just presentation videos of complete models. It may be mostly paper but he does some amazing work. In the last year he's done a Vickers Vimy and an Austrian flying boat from WWl.
I was taught gyroscopic procession using the exact same diagrams at college! A blast from the past in this one Greg, great vid as always
Hi. Magic. For the first time you have managed to explain clearly to me the effects of rotary engines. As in the camel. Very clearly..this is even after being trained as anRAF ENGINE fitter. Thank you. Jon Jackson 👍🏼
This short video answered all the questions I've had about the Camel since I was a kid.
Just popping in to say that I love this and the other WW1 material, particularly as a childhood fan of Biggles and the Derek Robinson novels. I’m poor at physics and engineering, and am grateful for the straightforward presentation of how these concepts affected these planes. Cheers
Robinson so good. You tried Donald Jack's The Bandy Papers?
@@raycollishaw673 I have not, but from the enthusiastic Wikipedia page they sound fun! I think I detect a sardonic note in one of that page’s editors:
“The books are noted for their humour and word play, as well as technical and historical accuracy (except possibly in India).”
I shall look it up, thanks for the recommendation.
Re Robinson, “Piece of Cake” followed by “War Story” stuck with me.
Thanks Greg. This vastly increased my understanding of rotary engines.
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This is one of the most fascinating videos I have ever watched - thank you for such a clear explanation. Gyroscpes and precession are among the black arts!
It is amazing to think how insanely fast the evolution of the plane was in the First World War. It almost seems that as soon as an aircraft came out and hit the front lines it was pretty much obsolete.
And the pilots themselves, so many of them used to have a fair knowledge of engineering (especially the aces) so used to make their own impromptu tweaks to their planes.
Cracking video sir.
One of my favorite places is the old rhineback aerodrome. Great place to see these ww1 airplanes in action. They have several replicas flying! A rotary engine sounds like a machine gun.
we've been there several times and taken flights in a biplane which I seem to recall was called the Standard - it was black and orange. You sit in a 4 seater cockpit directly in front of the pilot and behind the engine wearing a little cloth Snoopy head piece. The flights are low and slow and absolutely marvelous, as are the daily air shows and the museum barns. Highly recommended. And, yes - those rotaries with the on/off switch instead of a throttle sound like they are constantly stalling.
Excellent video. My grandfather was an artillery observer in WW1.
"The only effective lubricant for the rotary engine was castor oil. As the huge mass of engine whirled around, spewing out a spray of castor oil, pilots and ground crew complained not only of the smell but of the fact that it affected their digestive systems." The life of a First World War pilot was hard but their bowls were softened.
This led, ultimately, to the dreaded *Castrol R…* - a castor-based oil, chiefly used in racing.
That wasn't a scarf around their neck, that was toilet paper! 😃 "Biggles, my bowels are rumbling. Fly us over the Germans."
Even the interwar Fiat CR.32 had an engine what was lubricated with castor oil.
They were 2 stroke engines, they didn't leak oil, they burnt it in a total loss lubrication system, there were no exhaust pipes, exhaust gas and unburnt oil was just discharged from the outlet ports, fuel/oil mixture was fed into the crankcase and then drawn up into the cylinder heads, there was no throttle, the on,y way to control the power of the engine was to intermittently switch off the ignition, castor oil was used because it was cheap and easily dissolved into the petrol.
They typically weighed around 300 lb, not massively heavy , roughly 1/3rd of the total weight of the airframe, minus pilot
One thing I should say - thank you for using the correct relevant aspect ratio for the images.
Pretty cool how both ww1 and ww2 had a really iconic and balanced matchup between a British and German fighter, Camel and Dr.1 in the first, with the Spitfire and Bf 109 in the second.
That's mildly historical indeed, reality is as always a bit more complex as a number of French types more than held their own in the fray of WWI, as did American and Soviet types in WWII.
I’d say the Fw190 during WW2 also counts.
The Bf109 got outclassed by the Spitfire by mid war, and never really recovered (fundamentally it was just an older design), so the Fw190 took over as the really dangerous adversary, while the Bf109 was relegated to bomber hunting (essentially becoming the equivalent of the Hurricane during the Battle of Britain). They should really have phased out the Bf109, but they kept churning them out because of internal politics (basically Albert Speer got to look really good by saying he’d produced loads of aircraft, never mind that they were completely obsolete and they had neither the fuel or pilots to use them effectively).
@@Pouncer9000 No Soviet fighter was ever especially competitive with the best German fighters and especially not Allied fighters.
@@HALLish-jl5mo All the top Aces flew 109's most of them even after the 190 was available to them.
@@schmitty1944 That is interesting, but those are WW2 German claims.
Which are... Questionable.
It was a target rich environment, so I don't doubt they had the largest number of aces, and the most successful ones. But between their habits of attributing an entire squadron's victories to its leader, and just making up victories, I'd take those numbers with a pinch of salt.
I'd also note that the really high numbers were usually accrewed on the Eastern front, which got proportionally less Fw190s, because they were facing worse aircraft.
Typically fascinating and insightful. Good work.
cheers from sunny Vienna, Scott
My dad built a 1/4 scale RC model of the Camel back in the 70’s. I don’t believe he ever flew it as he was so proud of the build and he had plenty of others to fly that he didn’t mind if they got banged up. My brother still has it and has it hung from the ceiling at his home.
I really enjoy these kind of videos. My favorite part, gyroscopic procession. Thanks again mate!
Warm greetings back to you Greg
Another incredible video Greg. Thank you for your work on these!
Modeler here: I build in 1/72 scale so I don't worry about replicating the flat RAF wire. I just use elastic line that's about 3 or 4 thousandths of an inch unstretched. There are some photo etched wire stets made to replicate the RAF wire but I don't like it, it's too hard to get it to look taught. I don't even bother to try and make the doubled flying wires, I just use a single strand. I can't get the doubled wire to look regular enough in spacing and I think uneven spacing looks worse than a single wire.
Bigger scale builders go these same routes, plus, sometimes they'll use stretched rectangular plastic strip. An interesting feature of heat stretching geometric shapes, is, they retain their shape when you stretch it, it just gets thinner. If you take a piece of styrene strip about 10x40 thousandths, heat it over a flame (very carefully) until it softens, and then pull the two ends apart, the plastic will stretch. The more you stretch, the thinner it gets. By controlling the stretch you can achieve any dimension you want and it will retain the 1x4 proportions. That's pretty much a "master modeler" technique that I don't think I'll ever try. It works with tubes and hex shaped rod too. You can make thinner tubes or hexes by heat stretching.
I built the 1/16 scale sopwith camel, wood and metal model from ModelExpo. Very fine model indeed being a scale replica. They use thread for all rigging. I follow the directions. At the end of the day it is a model.....
It has been awhile, but I recall it was the "Royal Guardsmen" whom sang the Snoopy song "... the bloody Red Barron of Germany". Santa Rosa named the airport in honor of the creator, one of their favorite residents - it was a "cool" when his children ordered a pizza (mid 70's) and drove the Deno to Round Table to pick it up.
Great as always, thank you.
Snoopy flies a Sopwith Camel, you gotta respect that.
Thanks for including the link to the double hammer head, it was an excellent addition to this video.
Thanks buddy. I appreciate your view and I see you here all the time.
I flew a Sopwith at the age of about 5 in 1985. It starred in one of the earlier PC games with horrible graphics and sound, yet I fondly remember stalling and crashing!
Sounds like Sierra Game's "Red Baron"... the Camel was almost unflyable with keypad alone. A fantastic game with one of the first game recorders.
@@jmackmcneill I played that game a lot. You needed a stick and rudder pedals. I miss the old Sierra On-Line where you flew against other folks. I had that hammerhead stall down to a science with the Camel there. But in both games, my favorite was the Pup. It flew so well.
@@jmackmcneill Hah I wish! Red Baron was a good game from 1990, when 386 computers could sort of do graphics, sort of do sound and if you were lucky good gameplay as well. I'm talking about 1984's Sopwith, which for the time was the best game I had, because it was the only one.. If you search 1984 Sopwith Dos you will find some videos about it. :)
@@jmackmcneillI had Red Baron in about 2000, and even with a stick it was hard to fly the planes. I would try to dogfight and would get shot down from behind almost every time, and rarely even could get a glimpse of an enemy plane. I ditched it for MS Combat Flight Simulator.
Good video. Interviewed many, many years later in the 1980s, Tom Sopwith specifically noted the effort to keep the weights concentrated in a close space on the Camel. Another development that helped defeat the Albatros fighters was the Constantinesco synchronizer which aided rate of fire and reliability from the Vickers guns in 1917-18. Going from a single gun Pup with the old synchronizer to a Constantinesco dual gun on the Camel would have been a big jump for an allied airman.
I could be wrong, but I've always had the notion that rotary engines were initially developed, at least in part as a weight saving measure. Most piston engines have a heavy flywheel bolted onto one end of the crankshaft. To save weight, engine designers came up with the idea of rotating the cylinder block and crankcase, in effect making the engine the flywheel and doing away with the separate flywheel. This worked well for the relatively small early engines. As engines got bigger and heavier, gyroscopic effects became more marked, until the weight saving was outweighed by the effect of gyroscopic progression, as well as the other disadvantages mentioned in the video.
Amazing video, looking forward to more WW I content. I think your narration is great because it is very balanced: an objective gaze on the problems of engineering through time. Can't wait for the next one!
I once wrote a procedure on turning left in the DR1 on the old Rise of Flight forums, its a WW1 flight sim. It basically went as such....Step one start your roll to the left, step two apply left rudder to start the nose in a downward attitude, and three haul back on the stick and apply more left rudder. The left rudder forces the nose towards the ground and helps counteract the procession.
While you're in there, you might test out the firing tactic that Henry Forster taught me: if you 'walk' the rudder sharply side to side, the gyro torque of a rotary will nod the aircraft slightly in proportion. This will increase and decrease a 'cone of fire' from the gun(s) without having to steer the point of aim while shooting...
@@wizlish yeah it will oscillate. Whats scary is while learning that you can sometimes completely roll over if you don’t give opposite aileron or if you have a heavy foot on your pedals.
Yeah, he pointed out that you used sharp jabs against the pedals, so high but very short deflection of the rudder, and a fast enough oscillation that the actual yaw never built up substantially before it was 'reversed out'
You would NOT do this if you were anywhere near a stall on either wing, so presumably you'd be diving 'out of the sun' or not in a hard turn. I wonder if you'd learn to fly a Camel so you'd preferentially stall the left wing first, so the old sailplane trick of rudder-turning away from the stalling wing would also torque the fuselage nose-down...
Thanks for another WW1 aviation video, Greg. Fantastic job on this one!
Can't wait until you do a full deep dive into the SPAD XIII
Second.
@@Drabkikker If Greg ranks the SPAD S XIII behind the Camel, I will not be pleased.
@@charlesmartin1121 I wouldn't be surprised if the SPAD isn't as good as we hope or imagine. Kind of like "don't meet your heros in real life". Personally, I like the real peeks behind the curtains, warts and all.
@@saintsempai I am no expert, but those I follow have a very high opinion of the SPAD. As did it's pilots. But of course nothing is perfect.
@@charlesmartin1121 exactly. Greg seems to try to be as objective unbiased as possible. Another thing he does so well is bring huge amounts of context.
Between the wars, a couple of guys did tours of New Zealand towns in a pair of trainer planes, my dad and his brother got a ride in them. Dad said they were Sopwith twin seaters. My uncle got the flying bug, but lessons were too expensive. We didn't have much of an air-force until closer to WW2, but he did get to fly . . . gunner in a Halifax then a Lanc, then M.I.A. on the way back from one of the Kiel raids trying for Tirpitz.
Thank you for pointing out the Clerget was the most often used engine. So many F1 replicas are fitted with the Gnome Monosoupape as in the Neiuport 28. As you are an expert aero/auto engine guy, please consider doing a rotary enigine comparison video. I'd especially like to find out about the LeRhone 9R (180 BHP?) that was slated for the "Super" Nieuport 28 with 600 ordered by the USAS in 1918 and cancelled with the Armistice.
---From what I understand, as with the 147th Aero Squadron's Nie 28's, the new "Super" had all the "breakaway" mainplane leading edge trouble, fatiguing copper fuel line/tank etc. resolved.
This was great to learn. Thanks, Greg!
A modern example of large gyroscopic forces on an airplane is a single seat Pitts biplane with 180 hp and metal prop. The gyroscopic forces are particularly evident on takeoff roll when you raise the tail with forward stick. This causes the aircraft to yaw which requires immediate rudder input to stay on the runway. The prop wash over the rudder also plays a factor but the gyroscopic forces are very evident with the aircraft pitch change.
I have always wondered about the gyroscopic effect of rotary engines, thank you for this explanation!
My father flew one. It was only really safe to make turns to port until a higher airspeed was attained. At take off and landing, the engine was pulsed on and off to allow for better control at lower speeds. The guns jammed frequently until brass was eliminated (different coefficients of expansion). The pilots were mostly teenagers, and a large number failed to survive training and get into battle.
I have also heard that it did not fly in the direction it was pointing. Camels tended to crab across the sky.
I SAY thank you,Greg..a unbelievable simple yet specific analysis of Aircraft..You present this so someone like me can understand the content, and a aeronautical engineer will not be insulted!! KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK!!!!!!
A very good video Greg. I used to think it was torque caused by the rotary engine that made the Camel so good in the turn, but you explained it so well. Loved the refrence to Snoopy also!
The small size of the Camel’s vertical stab is both amazing and pretty scary to me every time I look at it.
The best photos of Camel I have ever seen. Wonderful detail and colour. I am impressed
94k watchers in one day after posting it, great job. God speed.
Good video! Informative and the voice-over is a human and enthusiastic. Kept me engaged...thanks!
Thank you, I am a human.
I read a biography of Eddie Rickenbacker, America's top ace in WW1
While his fellow pilots would go out on the town, he'd stay back at his base, testing the bullets for his machine guns. He'd take one out of the belt, test it in mold (for want of a better term) that verified that the round would fit properly in the machine gun. He'd find about 20 or so duds, bullets that would jam the machine guns when fired.
His flying kit is on display at omaka, nz
Rickenbacker's book was entitled: "Fighting the Flying Circus". Interesting read.
This is great info as a player of all planes in IL-2 Sturmovik - I've always wondered why the Fw190A (others too, but I always noticed this one in particular) will require lots off hard left rudder when pulling back on the stick (pitching up). It also helps me understand about why planes like the Fokker Dr.1 need to enter a roll with both aileron and rudder.
FINALY A DECETVIDEO ON SOPWITH CAMEL! THANK YOU. (please do a longer version in high detail if you can :P)
Thanks. I do have a lot more to say about the Camel and other WW1 airplanes. I'll see how this one does before I commit to anything. Next video is the Mosquito F.B. VI as a bomber. It's one I have really been wanting to make.
Excellent. Interesting and very educational. Thank You
As always with Greg's videos I was just getting right into it as it finished ! 🤣🤣🤣🤣
An excellent description of the Camel and its inherent issues with precession. Fascinating flying history - I have subscribed.
Current issue of Cross and Cockade magazine, published by Great War Aviation Society has article about Camel, focusing on how difficult it was to fly. The author had access to interviews with Camel pilots that had been done in 1960s. Consensus was that it wasn’t particularly difficult to fly for an experienced pilot. Takeoffs were the trickiest from a gyroscopic perspective. Now, we have to remember that these pilots had experience with rotary engines, as the Pup was used as a trainer. Also, pilots were used to flying this type of aircraft- you can’t fly it hands-off like modern aircraft.
Consider that the primary training aircraft used for British training up to about 1916 was the Maurice Farman MF7 Longhorn, which was rife with weird and quirky handling as well as being slower than anything they were training to fly. There was also a mix of RAF BE2 and some Sopwith two seater trainers.. Up until they decided that the AVRO 504 with it's generous tail arm and somewhat innocuous handling was to be changed over to in the mid 1917's. It gave you a gentle taste of gyro precession and rotary engine operation procedures and they installed bosun's tubes so the trainee could be shouted at when he made a mistake.
Thanks Greg! Great video! It really helped me appreciate the Camel, as well as to better understand how the rotary engine affected the flight characteristics of the aircraft and why the rotary fell out of favor. It all makes sense now.
0:22 It's been settled that ground fire finished off the Red Baron.
You’re correct, it was a Vickers gunner named Cedric Popkin, and the round entered his right armpit and exited near his left nipple. Brown, the pilot pursuing Richthofen, was directly behind, making that fatal round trajectory impossible.
According to this video the camel was good at making right hand turns and the baron was shot in the left side.
@@Xeno1001 How do you know he was directly behind? It was a ww1 dog fight, would have been all kinds of zig zags.
@@banzi403 because Richthofen was chasing another Camel at low level, the Vickers gunner, Popkin, spotted Richthofen chasing that Camel with Brown following from behind. Richthofen died in a chase for his 81st kill, not a turning fight.
th-cam.com/video/jYeo0NucVr0/w-d-xo.htmlsi=7AsDElkrPZO2Lnne
@@Xeno1001 doesn't make it impossible the shot came from brown. "who shot down the red baron?" Is a question that shows everything wrong with the interweb.
Thanks for another great video! Lots of fantastic photos
Fantastic.... the cowling/gun heat issue is a bit of a mystery for me too. Maybe someone realised that increased heat = reduced viscosity on the gun lubricants and better reliability, but that doent explain why this is the only example
What a fabulously informative video. Thank you!
I'm somewhat chagrined to say that I first heard of the Sopwith Camel in the 'Peanuts' comic strip. I was much more familiar with SPADs and Nieuports.
Most edifying. Thanks for posting, Greg.
A force feedback simulator would be very interesting.
Gyroscopic precession. I remember taking physics in high-school and college. I always liked the bicycle wheel and swivel chair. It was always fun!
I learned about that goofy rotary engine from a warplane documentary on PBS. Holy centrifugal forces, Batman! Sounds difficult to wrangle. I've only just started the video as I'm writing this. Looking forward to learning more about it.
That was another reason for the Camel nickname as a 🐪 was known to bite its rider.
Oh, side note, I wonder what would happen for a multi engine plane using these rotary engines. Would the gyroscopic forces cancel out if the plane had two opposing rotation engines? Would the airframes and wings have internal stresses greater than normal? That'd be a fun thing to think about if I was smarter. Lol
If they counter rotated then yes, they would cancel each other out. To my knowledge, such a plane has never been built, meaning a twin engine plane with counter rotating rotary engines.
@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles I can imagine that once the performance of a twin engine plane was required, the metallurgy would've also sufficiently improved to allow for radial engines instead. Anyway, fascinating video as always. I like the way you visualized gyroscopic precession.
@@TrentFalkenrath There were twin engine and even four engine planes during WW1. I can't think of any that didn't use liquid cooled engines though.
My great-uncle flew the Camel, and most of his 11.5 victories (1918) were over Fokker D-VII 's. They (Canadians) trained near Ft. Worth, USA as it was winter.
It might have been nice (follow up video?) to show the Camel's tendencies using a flight sim. Also, the key parts of the Camel would fit inside my desk. It is intriguing to think about sitting inside my desk at 10,000 feet shooting at an Albatros D.V.
I might do that.
Thanks Greg. I am familiar with the theories behind flight controls, lift, thrust, etc., but I enjoy learning about complications behind it. People often forget that there is more to flying than stick and pedals.
I got to crawl over one of those WW1 rotarys in the Melbourne museum. It had inlet valves in the piston crowns and one exhaust valve in each head. I assumed the fuel oil mixture was sucked into the crankcase, sort of like a two stroke.
Correct, leading to very little engine throttle control, idle or full power mainly. Intermediate power settings were achieved by blipping the engine, in other words turning off the ignition momentarily.
@@chrisknight6884 The high rotating mass of a rotary meant it would continue to spin when "blipped" momentarily and then restart. Of course when "blipped" it would pass unburned fuel that often ignited when the engine restarted.
Wonderful video on the Camel. Funny you mention Snoopy, it's the reason I heard of the Camel and the reason it became my favorite WWI fighter. The SPAD VIII with Eddie Rickenbacker was another favorite. I eventually ended up with a VK Newport 17 RC aircraft that was built in the 70's by some Navy Contract worker. It was given to me in the 80's and I rebuilt it. It had Lafayette Escadrille markings on it with the Sioux Chief on the side. I routinely flew in the mid 80's at the NAS Whidbey Is. OLF (Outlying Landing Field) the US Navy uses for landing practice. That's when the club was allowed to fly there in the 80's off the southern taxi ways. I still have the VK Newport 17 hanging from my bedroom ceiling. That model is about 50 years old now. LOL Thanks again for the great video. Best Wishes & Blessings. Keith Noneya