I remember back in I believe it was 1999 or 2000 speaking to Henry Botterell in a phone conversation....he was considered to be the last surviving WW1 pilot and I had just learned about him from a Rememberance Day article in the Toronto Star newspaper....the article mentioned the nursing home in Toronto where he resided and I called him...by this time he was I believe over a hundred years old and he had an incredible memory telling me all about the Sopwith Camel...I don't recall the details of the conversation but I do remember that he was happy that I called. It was an honor.
One of my most cherished memories was to write to Eddie Rickenbacher was to ask for his autograph. Several weeks later I received his autograph and note in 1958.
I wonder how many times that actually happened. It wouldn't surprise me to learn at least one photographer dropped their camera or maybe even chucked it at an enemy.
My great-grandpa Walworth Pattison was a pilot in the war. During one crash, he recovered nerve injuries that paralyzed his arm, but he kept flying because they needed trained pilots. Over time he regained his arm, but instead lost use of his legs for the rest of his life. He spent his life pushing for equality for disabled persons in a time when they were hidden away.
I am an aerospace engineering student and i found this episode to be my favourite. I hope you make other episodes regarding both recognisance and fighters in more depth. Thanks guys and keep up the awesome work!
In fact, René Fonck's final tally could conceivably be nearer 100 or above. He has claimed 127 but the real number is something like 142 because french kill confirmation system was very severe : to obtain confirmation for an aerial victory, the French aviator needed to have the testimony of three independent persons (excluding members of his own squadron), the type of enemy aircraft and the place, date and the hour of battle.
Et surtout les Allemands avaient le culte de la performance personnelle et favorisaient au maximum leurs as, au détriment de la qualité générale de leur aviation, alors qu'en France l'aviation se concentrait sur le travail d'équipe.
I've only just discovered this channel, but it's quickly becoming my favorite. Whilst making wish that I could go back to university just to study 20th and 19th century... STUFF. You're doing a bloody good job chaps, keep it up!
Another problem with the pusher configurations is the fact that, during a crash landing (and at the time a perfect landing could turn into a bad one fairly easy) the engine could smash the pilot, while in the tractor configuration the engine acts like a shield, protecting the poor bastard flying the thing.
+fguare11 Another problem with pushers is cold. A pusher was cold because the pilot sat in the open slipstream with nothing to warm him. With a tractor, the waste heat from the engine warmed the pilot. James McCudden wrote of this in his book 'Flying Fury'. A L Gould wrote in 'No Parachute' that British pilots rubbed their faces (especially noses) with whale grease to combat the cold at altitude. In 'Der rote Kampfflieger' Manfred von Richtofen wrote that Lanoe Hawker's DH2 turned as well as his Albatros D.II, so the argument that pushers were not as maneuverable as tractor planes is ill-founded. But tractors became faster.
I recently discovered your channel and now have a lot of content to catch up on. Looks great! I did note, however, that the caption on the 'Sopwith F1 Camel' photo at 4:33 is, in fact, a Sopwith Snipe of 43 Sqd, 1918 (the pilot being Lt. Mulcair of A Flight).
No mention of Oswald Boelcke? I know his kill count trails the top scorers, but the Dicta Boelcke is perhaps the defining set of tactics for WW1's air war. Hell, the man taught Manfred von Richthofen, and accounts I've read say that Richthofen considered him to be the superior pilot, despite him eclipsing Boelcke's kill tally.
The only reason *anyone* eclipsed Boelcke is firstly that he died so soon, and secondly that unlike his pupil he wasn't a total psychopath. Boelcke saw war as inevitable and fighting as his duty. Richthofen, based on his own writings, *relished* the whole deal far more then is reasonable.
boelcke already was featured in one of the earliest Airborne warfare episodes of the series. His hour will come again, as will Göring's and Udet's and Immelmann's... Also WW I aces are way behind WW II top pilots. Hartmann or Marseille could eclipse the whole panel of suggested top pilots with their own kills alone.
Amazing when you think about it.. you see that wooden construction of the wright brothers, and know that just 40 years later the Germans managed to build jet powered aircraft. Truly astonishing.
The Germans didn't have a monopoly on jets in WW2. The British independently invented their own turbojets and they built a fighter contemporary to the Me-262 called the Gloster Meteor. The difference was that the British were really nervous about flying them anywhere near Germany for fear of capture so they only got deployed to the European continent in 1945. While the Me-262 was influential for later designs, it wasn't a prerequisite for either the American or British futur jet development.
Actually, it's engine was. While Americans and British used centrifugal compressors, which turned out to be not so effective, Germans were first to successfully use an axial compressor, which is the basics of pretty much all jet engines currently in use.
Fun fact: The very first Ace in history was Adolphe Pégoud, the French newspapers described him as l'As (French for "Ace") after he became the first pilot to down five German aircraft. The British initially used the term "star-turns" (a show business term), while the Germans described their elite fighter pilots as Überkanonen (which roughly translates to "top gun"). This term was mainly used for propaganda and morale reasons, rather than an indicator of combat performance. The fact that only fighter pilots were credited as Aces vexed bomber and reconnaissance pilots who actually suffered the most casualties, did the most dangerous and important missions. Lastly it's futile to boast which country had the best aces because the approval standards for the Ace label varied from country to country (Germany and France had the harshest standards, Italy middle of the road, UK the laxest ones). Also Entente pilots mostly fought within German territory, making it harder for them to independently confirm victories.
The planes that you're showing at 4:30 are Sopwith Snipes, not Camels. The Camel was a only had a single set of inter plane struts per wing and the top wing had no dihedral. The planes shown in the video are the Camel's successor, which was introduced right at the end of the war and served on into the 20's. Keep up the good work guys, really glad I stumbled over your channel....
At 4:29 picture is of a Sopwith Snipe. . . not Camel. . . .but you probably know that by now! Would be interesting if you did a show on Edith Cavell. . . I mean why she was really shot.
I'd love to see a special that focuses all on aircraft of ww1 from beginning to end! Sort of like your videos on ww1 rifles only with planes exclusively.
As someone who volunteers in the Great War wing of Seattle's Museum of Flight, this subject always had an irresistible lure to me - especially the earliest points of the war, when combat aviation was still on very shaky ground. The French were perhaps the most open, having the most "kites," accepting them as part of the military's reconnaissance arm, and by general consensus having the best pilots in the pre-war era. Germany and England both had planes, but their pilots were busy fighting a political war with their own comrades in the cavalry, who saw them as a threat to their existence as a privileged class of officer-scouts. None of the major factions saw machine-guns as anything besides superfluous weight, and armed aircraft were considered almost useless, this despite the fact that a Bulgarian had dropped grenades on Ottoman lines during the Balkan wars. Indeed, this perception was so ingrained that Count Caproni's ingenious Ca.20 prototype was mocked and dismissed, despite having anticipated the pursuit-class of aircraft by two years when it was unveiled in 1914. It would take the trenches (which completely negated the usefulness of cavalry scouts) combined with the wireless radio to turn aircraft from a curio into first deadly accurate artillery spotters and eventually hunters trying to scour said spotters from the air.
Actually, pushers style aircraft wouldn't be extinct within aviation as we can see with some innovative designs of the 1940's. Such as the: Swedish *SAAB J21* Curtiss-Wright *XP-55 Ascender* Imperial Japanese *Kyūshū J7W1 "Shinden"* Convair *B-36 Peacemaker* (US bomber)
You really should call them lattice tails because that was their greatest weakness; a huge, high drag, lattice like structure just to support the tail surfaces. Did you know that a lot of obsolescent pushers got a new lease on life in the latter years of the war as night bombers? Drink your carrot juice..
I would not say that pusher aircraft where gone after WWI but they did become very rare for several reasons. Still there where a few experimental designs during WWII. What I know of only pusher configuration craft that when in to full production was the Swedish SAAB 21. It was also one of the first air planes to have a ejection seat to solve one of the biggest issues with the pusher configuration. Namely bailing out.
+Cythil There was also the experimental XP-54, XP-55 and XP-56 for the US, though none entered service. Additionally, the Japanese had an experimental fighter know as the J7W, which while it proved capable, never had a chance to be entered into service before the war ended. Also, the B-36 Peacemaker was actually produced in large numbers. So it's fair to say a few pusher aircraft were designed after the war.
Aegis270 Oh yes. The B-36 Peacemaker was straight after WWII. And of course there have been several civilian aircraft to with the configuration And in a sense all jet planes are pushers. ;) (though they do not really count.)
Fun fact: the Sopwith Camel's rotary engine produced such a ridiculous amount of torque in such a lightweight airframe that the aircraft was markedly easier to bank (and therefore turn) to the right. This was one of the things that made it such a handful.
Minor nitpick here, the mechanism that allowed these guns to fire through the propeller disc was not an interrupter gear which implies the gun fired fully automatically until the gear interrupted it's firing. This is a common misconception. The Fokker gear and all other mechanisms used on piston engined aircraft until after WWII worked by synchronising the gun with the propeller. To achieve this the machine gun was converted into a semi-automatic weapon and a sensor attached to the engine drive shaft literally fired the gun one or more times when the propeller blades were out of the way. The firing pulse sensor and the gear it self was usually mechanical but the Germans experimented with electrical synchronisers and the British used a hydraulic synchroniser gear. The number of times the gun fired between propeller blade passes depended on the cyclic rate of the gun and the configuration of the firing pulse generation mechanism. Also by the time that Garros was shot down two German companies were already had working synchroniser mechanisms, the LVG company and Fokker. Fokker's research was probably driven by the fact that his single seater monoplanes were not in much demand since they were .... well, single seaters and not very good for reconnaissance. The German OHL (High Command) wanted two seaters and Fokker was desperately trying to find a role for his single seaters. Thus the German OHL's suddenly interest in single seat tractor monoplanes with a forward firing gun came like manna from heaven for him. Fokker was able to show up to the viewing of Garros' monoplane with its bullet deflectors that he was invited to by the OHL and say 'well this primitive device is very interesting but as it happens I have **personally** invented a much better device' and in the process take credit for the work of his engineering team led by a guy named Heinrich Lübbe who probably developed the Fokker synchroniser gear (Fokker was a shameless self promoting egotist).
0:03 - Indy is saying "...the Wright brothers..." while video shows a Curtiss aircraft, 1910 model I think. 4:30 The video describes the Camel but the aircraft in the foreground of the image is a Snipe.
Hey, The Great War team! Love your show, keep up the good work. There is though something I'd like to add about air warfare developement during that war. There are two things actually. :) The first thing is these: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fliegerpfeil Unfortunately, there is no article in English about them, but since the majority of your team is german-speaking, I think it won't be a problem :) There is a great article about it in Russian, I can share it or even translate for you if required. I even heard that a German general was killed with this thing though I couldn't find the confirmation. I think it's worth mentioning. The second thing is the introduction of bombers. You mentioned them only briefly, but it was a big deal and I think that the tribute to the engeneer Igor Sikorsky should be given here as well. He developed the first bomber ever and a pretty good one. Actually, the life of this man is pretty fascinating, so maybe you'll make something about him and his "Ilya Muromets" aircrafts.
hey, love this channel. just want to point out that the photo at 4:31 is NOT of a sopwith camel. you can tell because of the curved upper wing. the camel's wing was flat.
One other problem with pushers in WW1: If you crash landed and nosed over (pretty common at the time) the crew could expect the engine to land on top of them.
Hey Indy and the team. In your "Religious Leaders During WW1" Out of the Trenches video you went in depth into South America during the war, talking about about all the countries there. But you missed the countries Guyana, French Guyana, and Suriname, so I was hoping you could say what they did. My whole family is from there, so I'm interested in the role my ancestors may have had. Thanks.
Bobbyjoeangus Not an expert at all, but I'm pretty sure that all 3 of those were colonies of the Europeans at the time (while French Guyana is still held by France). Guyana was British, and Suriname was Dutch. Probably the 2 (British and French) of them held by the allies mainly just sent supplies for the war effort, and maybe some troops, despite their quite small populations. The Dutch one - who knows, as Netherlands were neutral. Again, just an input from me on what probably happened as there's no other replies.
It's ironic that while the great war was considered a major boost in the airplane development, it actually hindered it too. Junkers development was set back some as their planes were largely incompatible with the air combat doctrines back in the day. They did produce a small number of Junkers D.I all-metal monoplane fighters for the navy in late 1917 (Junkers made the first all-metal monoplane in 1915), but Junker's success really 'took off', so to speak, with the post-war F.13 passenger transport plane.
@ 5:00 "World war one marked the end of pusher aircraft". Sorry to correct you, but some did see service after WW1. Most particularly the B36. But also aircraft like the Supermarine Walrus, The SAAB 21, Several Flying Wing, The Reaper drone and so on. But you are correct that WW1 was the last widespread usage of the pusher configuration.
Jimbo Jones I like the story of Captain Roy Arthur Brown. He was the last pilot to fight the "The Red Baron" (Manfred von Richthofen) and is credited with fatally shooting him down (but Captain Brown never claimed the "kill"-and researchers believe that it was actually from Aussie ground fire). Brown never lost a pilot in his flight during combat-a rare distinction for an air unit commander of that war. This was due largely to his demands for a "breaking in" period in which new pilots flew over the fights just to see how they worked.
Jimbo Jones Considering the list of German fighting aces that survived WW2 with hundreds of kills to their name and uncountable amounts of combat missions flown in western europe, eastern front in Russia and Italy and Africa I would assume that many good pilots that flew the entire war did indeed survive.
I think I am right in saying that the picture at 4:30 isn't the F1 camel. The upper wing didn't cut above the pilots head and it appears to bulky. of coarse I could be wrong. please tell me if I am
Also there was the italian ace Francesco Baracca,he had 34 confirmed kills and his badge is the Ferrari badge today,he was a hero for Italy and the Freccie Tricolori(the italian planes used for shows)dedicated a show for the 100th anniversary of his death. And only now i saw the video were you talk about him...i feel really stupid
Billy Mitchell, who is quoted at the end, wrote one of the two most influential treatises on airpower development after the war. If you are interesting in reading about how airpower theory was developed, I recommend Billy Mitchells "winged defence" and Guilo Douhet's "The command of the air".
Billy Mitchell is on a documentary here in Britain about so called "eastenders" it's a really interesting watch that would recommend for anybody interested in that period of British history.
Early in the war the Germans were very successful with a funny little recon aircraft known as the Taube. Since the allies had no effective fighters, and the soldiers on the ground were still learning how to shoot them down, they were very useful for the Germans as a reconnasaince platform. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etrich_Taube Not to mention they are also interesting looking.
The Great War I'm pretty sure that is correct and was credited with the first air to air kill. Just think about the level of marksmanship. It's almost mind boggling.
Greetings, thank you for the amazing content on your channel it is very educational. I want to propose one tiny thing on one of your future episodes. So here it is, if you guys feel like it deserves minute or two in one of your episodes it would be great! Anti-aircraft warfare (First plane crushed from ground) On the September 30th, 1915 in Serbia three enemy airplanes were flying towards the city of Kragujevac. When they reached destination they dropped 45 bombs. Serbian soldiers were trying to hit the airplanes with guns and pistols but surely with no success at all. Then the guy named Radoje Ljutovac with not so modern Turkish cannon taken from First Balkan war in 1912, aimed at one of the airplanes and took it down with first shot. At first the commander was furious that a soldier fired without any permission but when he saw the result they went together by the airplane and saw it crushed with dead pilots. Radoje Ljutovac saluted and commemorated to dead soldiers. The interesting thing is that this was fist airplane crushed from the ground action in the history of the Anti-aircraft warfare. Radoje Ljutovac should be pronunced something like: Radoye Lioutovats Kind regards!
love this episode, so far no historical inaccuracies :) Edit: Mannock had 61 confirmed kills. If we are going for unconfirmed kills Fonck is #1 still, but Collishaw is up there as well
I noticed that you mentioned the pusher-prop ceased to be used in warfare after WWI. I thought you'd be interested to know that it's back! I flew the RQ-7 Shadow (a UAV) in Afghanistan, which was a pusher-prop, with a whopping airspeed of 70 knots! It's primarily used for RSTA missions, though it can also use special antennas to push out ground comms, and the new extended wings have two hard-points underneath. Also, it's pretty reliable, as we hardly ever crashed any :)
+Ignar Åndersjøn the Husky (YOU TRIGGERED ME) That's a Moraine-Saulnier N. The Fokker Eindecker series is a copy of the Moraine-Saulnier H, which was a predecessor of the N.
Molo9000 Really? I remember that the British captured one or so E.3's that were mostly undamaged and put British roundels on it. Also how they learned about the mechanism that allowed the bullet to shoot as it passes the blade instead of the risk of the blade being shot to shreds.
2:02)One of the first flakwagens. Feld Laden Anti-Luft Kraft kanone. Truck mounted. 7:31)The Red Baron's younger brother shot down more planes. He left out two men Top Guns from the US. Captain Edward Vernon Richenbacker of the La Fayette Esquadrille. LieuTenant Eugene Bullard, from Columbus, Georgia (US) was in one of the squadrons. He was ahead of the Tuskegee group by about 25 years.
A good example of the progression and emphasis of pilot skill over ease of use as the war went on was the Sopwith Camel. It had a radial engine, which spun in the same direction as the propeller. They were notoriously dangerous for inexperienced plots because the torque of the engine and propeller spinning in the same direction was known to flip the whole aircraft on takeoff. Experienced pilots would stand on the opposite rudder to counteract the effect until the machine was airborne.
The Great War It really is. The number of pilots who died in non-combat related incidents was almost as high as the combat loss rate (385 in accidents, 413 in combat). www.theaerodrome.com/aircraft/gbritain/sopwith_camel.php
The aircraft shown at 6:57 is a Rumpler Eindecker. "Eindecker" simply means "monoplane." The famous Fokker Eindecker series, of which the narration speaks, was a bit different. We see one of those at 7:05.
I'm curious about the disputed kills of Mick Mannock - which ones are disputed, and why are they disputed? Do you think there is credence to either side's argument whether they are Mannock's kills or not? Could you possibly do a video on some of the more disputed issues of the war, including this?
Will you go into more detail about the Aces at some point? WWI aviation was utterly fascinating, one of my favorite history subjects. Also, pusher configurations definitely didn't end with WWI, there have been many fighters, attackers, prototypes, and civilian aircraft since then that use a pusher configuration to gain *more* speed and maneuverability. The reason WWI fighters switched to tractor configurations was because it was far easier to cool the engines with the air being blown over the engines and through radiators at a faster rate.
Creepy Productions We will do more episodes on the aces for sure! And of course the pusher concept didn't go away, but wouldn't you say tractor is the main concept?
+Naomi Nekomimi I'll try to make it simple. Instead of interrupting the firing of a fully automatic machine gun, they made the machine gun semi automatic (requiring a new trigger pull for each shot) and attached a mechanism to the propeller that would pull the trigger whenever it was safe to fire a round. So instead of the pilot directly pulling the trigger of the gun they would basically be turning on an automatic trigger that would fire a single synchronized shot over and over.
Danox94 given that the average life expectancy of a British pilot in 1917 is only about 4 days to 2 weeks, we can say that there is a high casualty rate.
Danox94 Depends on the time frame. In "Bloody April," 1917, aircrew lasted about 14 days. Surviving your fist five missions was about 50/50. As German oposition waned later in the war, it improved. This, however, was reversed when the RAF was switched to ground attack duties at the time of the German Mach 1918 Michel offensives. Small arms fire could easily down a wood and fabric aircraft. There were no parachutes until the very end, and on the German side only. Herman Goring parachuted to safety shortly before the war ended.
Thanks so much :) I am fascinated with the navy, especially aircraft carriers and submarines. Even if I know a bit about the subject, I know very little about ones from WWI and even less about submarines.
one picture near end of film, shows ship in water, with airplane above, and strange cloud or smoke formation high above plane, streaming down like a water curtain, for miles across the full frame image, behind ship and plane. please explain image if you can. thanks, randy
+randy tinney Prototype chemtrail - considered too obvious, the system was not refined enough for deployment until the mid-1990s. j/k Actually, i recently watched a video of one of the zeppelins arriving NYC on an around-the-world, and almost like the city's fire boats will salute incoming ships with their water cannons, an airplane flew across its path and emitted one of these things like a curtain that the dirigible flew through. Some sort of "daylight fireworks" I imagine.
I remember back in I believe it was 1999 or 2000 speaking to Henry Botterell in a phone conversation....he was considered to be the last surviving WW1 pilot and I had just learned about him from a Rememberance Day article in the Toronto Star newspaper....the article mentioned the nursing home in Toronto where he resided and I called him...by this time he was I believe over a hundred years old and he had an incredible memory telling me all about the Sopwith Camel...I don't recall the details of the conversation but I do remember that he was happy that I called. It was an honor.
thats great!
very interesting!
when
I wish I could talk to him😔
One of my most cherished memories was to write to Eddie Rickenbacher was to ask for his autograph. Several weeks later I received his autograph and note in 1958.
+Robert Walton Do you still have the note and autograph? That would be cool to see, or even to watch on youtube (hint hint)
+sergeantbigmac No lost to time.6th grader at the the time.
You know what would suck? If the aerial photographer dropped the camera.
....unless it hit Conrad von Hotzendorf on the way down.
I wonder how many times that actually happened. It wouldn't surprise me to learn at least one photographer dropped their camera or maybe even chucked it at an enemy.
Bob Clover haha I can see some disgruntled Brit throwing a camera at a German plane
and replaced by a smarter guy is more suck
"Shoot your revolver at me while flying by... YEGH!"
My great-grandpa Walworth Pattison was a pilot in the war. During one crash, he recovered nerve injuries that paralyzed his arm, but he kept flying because they needed trained pilots. Over time he regained his arm, but instead lost use of his legs for the rest of his life. He spent his life pushing for equality for disabled persons in a time when they were hidden away.
Knock Knock
Who's there?
Interrupter Gear
Interrupter Gear wh-
ratatatatatatatatata
+yumthegreat Bad dum Tss.
+yumthegreat leave off the gunfire and you've just made the best knock knock joke I've ever heard, in my humble opinion.
+The Great War You forgot Roy Brown didn't he shoot down the red baron?
***** Either he or an Aussie machine gun crew on the ground. The jury is still out.
Oh I read he was credited for the kill
I am an aerospace engineering student and i found this episode to be my favourite. I hope you make other episodes regarding both recognisance and fighters in more depth. Thanks guys and keep up the awesome work!
Salahudeen Younis We will, it's such an interesting topic.
In fact, René Fonck's final tally could conceivably be nearer 100 or above. He has claimed 127 but the real number is something like 142 because french kill confirmation system was very severe : to obtain confirmation for an aerial victory, the French aviator needed to have the testimony of three independent persons (excluding members of his own squadron), the type of enemy aircraft and the place, date and the hour of battle.
Et surtout les Allemands avaient le culte de la performance personnelle et favorisaient au maximum leurs as, au détriment de la qualité générale de leur aviation, alors qu'en France l'aviation se concentrait sur le travail d'équipe.
I would go so far as to say that Rene is the true WW1 ace and not the red baron
If you find this interesting, the game Rise of Flight is a great way to experience ww1 air combat.
Awesome avatar
IL2BoS' dlc "Flying circus" is really worth the money too (in vr of course)
Ew. Do not promote gaming addiction on important matters
Thank you for the episode on air warfare. Looking forward to more aviation-focused episodes!
Peter Zavislak Glad you liked it.
The advancements in aviation from Kitty Hawk in 1903 to the start of WWI in 1914 always amazed me.
I've only just discovered this channel, but it's quickly becoming my favorite. Whilst making wish that I could go back to university just to study 20th and 19th century... STUFF. You're doing a bloody good job chaps, keep it up!
Another problem with the pusher configurations is the fact that, during a crash landing (and at the time a perfect landing could turn into a bad one fairly easy) the engine could smash the pilot, while in the tractor configuration the engine acts like a shield, protecting the poor bastard flying the thing.
+fguare11 Another problem with pushers is cold. A pusher was cold because the pilot sat in the open slipstream with nothing to warm him. With a tractor, the waste heat from the engine warmed the pilot. James McCudden wrote of this in his book 'Flying Fury'.
A L Gould wrote in 'No Parachute' that British pilots rubbed their faces (especially noses) with whale grease to combat the cold at altitude.
In 'Der rote Kampfflieger' Manfred von Richtofen wrote that Lanoe Hawker's DH2 turned as well as his Albatros D.II, so the argument that pushers were not as maneuverable as tractor planes is ill-founded. But tractors became faster.
I recently discovered your channel and now have a lot of content to catch up on. Looks great!
I did note, however, that the caption on the 'Sopwith F1 Camel' photo at 4:33 is, in fact, a Sopwith Snipe of 43 Sqd, 1918 (the pilot being Lt. Mulcair of A Flight).
Nice typewriter in the background, reminds me of my Remington model 12 1923
Top tier video for a level history this video is jam packed full of knowledge it’s brilliant 👍🏻👍🏻
No mention of Oswald Boelcke? I know his kill count trails the top scorers, but the Dicta Boelcke is perhaps the defining set of tactics for WW1's air war. Hell, the man taught Manfred von Richthofen, and accounts I've read say that Richthofen considered him to be the superior pilot, despite him eclipsing Boelcke's kill tally.
The only reason *anyone* eclipsed Boelcke is firstly that he died so soon, and secondly that unlike his pupil he wasn't a total psychopath. Boelcke saw war as inevitable and fighting as his duty. Richthofen, based on his own writings, *relished* the whole deal far more then is reasonable.
boelcke already was featured in one of the earliest Airborne warfare episodes of the series. His hour will come again, as will Göring's and Udet's and Immelmann's...
Also WW I aces are way behind WW II top pilots. Hartmann or Marseille could eclipse the whole panel of suggested top pilots with their own kills alone.
@@Ugly_German_Truths I'm always happy to see Hartmann and Marseille mentioned!
Oswald boelcke
Amazing when you think about it.. you see that wooden construction of the wright brothers, and know that just 40 years later the Germans managed to build jet powered aircraft. Truly astonishing.
The Germans didn't have a monopoly on jets in WW2. The British independently invented their own turbojets and they built a fighter contemporary to the Me-262 called the Gloster Meteor. The difference was that the British were really nervous about flying them anywhere near Germany for fear of capture so they only got deployed to the European continent in 1945. While the Me-262 was influential for later designs, it wasn't a prerequisite for either the American or British futur jet development.
Actually, it's engine was. While Americans and British used centrifugal compressors, which turned out to be not so effective, Germans were first to successfully use an axial compressor, which is the basics of pretty much all jet engines currently in use.
Has anyone ever told you that you and Bob Odenkirk(who pays Saul in Breaking Bad) really look alike or is it just me?
Ayush Agarwal You should check our Facebook page photo gallery and have a good laugh.
What is that strange cloud formation at 8:15? It almost looks like the White Cliffs of Dover.
0:55 holy sh*t that is incredible!
I love these videos. They're well made and are even narrated by the suave Indy.
Fun fact: The very first Ace in history was Adolphe Pégoud, the French newspapers described him as l'As (French for "Ace") after he became the first pilot to down five German aircraft. The British initially used the term "star-turns" (a show business term), while the Germans described their elite fighter pilots as Überkanonen (which roughly translates to "top gun").
This term was mainly used for propaganda and morale reasons, rather than an indicator of combat performance. The fact that only fighter pilots were credited as Aces vexed bomber and reconnaissance pilots who actually suffered the most casualties, did the most dangerous and important missions.
Lastly it's futile to boast which country had the best aces because the approval standards for the Ace label varied from country to country (Germany and France had the harshest standards, Italy middle of the road, UK the laxest ones). Also Entente pilots mostly fought within German territory, making it harder for them to independently confirm victories.
As a Canadian, I appreciate you mentioning Billy Bishop, aka "Hell's Handmaiden" to the Germans.
The planes that you're showing at 4:30 are Sopwith Snipes, not Camels. The Camel was a only had a single set of inter plane struts per wing and the top wing had no dihedral. The planes shown in the video are the Camel's successor, which was introduced right at the end of the war and served on into the 20's. Keep up the good work guys, really glad I stumbled over your channel....
great vids, glad I found this channel, keep it up. nice to see a shout out to my hometown legend billy bishop.
Excellent narration and footage. Thanks.
At 4:29 picture is of a Sopwith Snipe. . . not Camel. . . .but you probably know that by now! Would be interesting if you did a show on Edith Cavell. . . I mean why she was really shot.
We made a whole special on her.
Nice catch on the snipe.
I'd love to see a special that focuses all on aircraft of ww1 from beginning to end! Sort of like your videos on ww1 rifles only with planes exclusively.
As someone who volunteers in the Great War wing of Seattle's Museum of Flight, this subject always had an irresistible lure to me - especially the earliest points of the war, when combat aviation was still on very shaky ground. The French were perhaps the most open, having the most "kites," accepting them as part of the military's reconnaissance arm, and by general consensus having the best pilots in the pre-war era. Germany and England both had planes, but their pilots were busy fighting a political war with their own comrades in the cavalry, who saw them as a threat to their existence as a privileged class of officer-scouts. None of the major factions saw machine-guns as anything besides superfluous weight, and armed aircraft were considered almost useless, this despite the fact that a Bulgarian had dropped grenades on Ottoman lines during the Balkan wars. Indeed, this perception was so ingrained that Count Caproni's ingenious Ca.20 prototype was mocked and dismissed, despite having anticipated the pursuit-class of aircraft by two years when it was unveiled in 1914. It would take the trenches (which completely negated the usefulness of cavalry scouts) combined with the wireless radio to turn aircraft from a curio into first deadly accurate artillery spotters and eventually hunters trying to scour said spotters from the air.
Actually, pushers style aircraft wouldn't be extinct within aviation as we can see with some innovative designs of the 1940's. Such as the:
Swedish *SAAB J21*
Curtiss-Wright *XP-55 Ascender*
Imperial Japanese *Kyūshū J7W1 "Shinden"*
Convair *B-36 Peacemaker* (US bomber)
And technically most jet aircrafts are pushers.
Technically, but the motors of old aircraft and modern propulsion are very different
math77370 Sure, but the term "extinct" was used :P
And today, we have the MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper UAVs
You really should call them lattice tails because that was their greatest weakness; a huge, high drag, lattice like structure just to support the tail surfaces. Did you know that a lot of obsolescent pushers got a new lease on life in the latter years of the war as night bombers? Drink your carrot juice..
love your work
I would not say that pusher aircraft where gone after WWI but they did become very rare for several reasons. Still there where a few experimental designs during WWII. What I know of only pusher configuration craft that when in to full production was the Swedish SAAB 21. It was also one of the first air planes to have a ejection seat to solve one of the biggest issues with the pusher configuration. Namely bailing out.
+Cythil There was also the experimental XP-54, XP-55 and XP-56 for the US, though none entered service.
Additionally, the Japanese had an experimental fighter know as the J7W, which while it proved capable, never had a chance to be entered into service before the war ended.
Also, the B-36 Peacemaker was actually produced in large numbers.
So it's fair to say a few pusher aircraft were designed after the war.
Aegis270
Oh yes. The B-36 Peacemaker was straight after WWII.
And of course there have been several civilian aircraft to with the configuration
And in a sense all jet planes are pushers. ;)
(though they do not really count.)
Fun fact: the Sopwith Camel's rotary engine produced such a ridiculous amount of torque in such a lightweight airframe that the aircraft was markedly easier to bank (and therefore turn) to the right. This was one of the things that made it such a handful.
I still find it amazing that in 1903 we made a flying machine, and just 13 years later in 1916 we found a way to kill each other with them.
NO ONE tells a story like Indy😊!!
great piece. Thanks
Minor nitpick here, the mechanism that allowed these guns to fire through the propeller disc was not an interrupter gear which implies the gun fired fully automatically until the gear interrupted it's firing. This is a common misconception. The Fokker gear and all other mechanisms used on piston engined aircraft until after WWII worked by synchronising the gun with the propeller. To achieve this the machine gun was converted into a semi-automatic weapon and a sensor attached to the engine drive shaft literally fired the gun one or more times when the propeller blades were out of the way. The firing pulse sensor and the gear it self was usually mechanical but the Germans experimented with electrical synchronisers and the British used a hydraulic synchroniser gear. The number of times the gun fired between propeller blade passes depended on the cyclic rate of the gun and the configuration of the firing pulse generation mechanism. Also by the time that Garros was shot down two German companies were already had working synchroniser mechanisms, the LVG company and Fokker. Fokker's research was probably driven by the fact that his single seater monoplanes were not in much demand since they were .... well, single seaters and not very good for reconnaissance. The German OHL (High Command) wanted two seaters and Fokker was desperately trying to find a role for his single seaters. Thus the German OHL's suddenly interest in single seat tractor monoplanes with a forward firing gun came like manna from heaven for him. Fokker was able to show up to the viewing of Garros' monoplane with its bullet deflectors that he was invited to by the OHL and say 'well this primitive device is very interesting but as it happens I have **personally** invented a much better device' and in the process take credit for the work of his engineering team led by a guy named Heinrich Lübbe who probably developed the Fokker synchroniser gear (Fokker was a shameless self promoting egotist).
Interesting video. A nice and informative one. Nice job.
0:03 - Indy is saying "...the Wright brothers..." while video shows a Curtiss aircraft, 1910 model I think. 4:30 The video describes the Camel but the aircraft in the foreground of the image is a Snipe.
Hey, The Great War team! Love your show, keep up the good work.
There is though something I'd like to add about air warfare developement during that war. There are two things actually. :)
The first thing is these: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fliegerpfeil Unfortunately, there is no article in English about them, but since the majority of your team is german-speaking, I think it won't be a problem :) There is a great article about it in Russian, I can share it or even translate for you if required. I even heard that a German general was killed with this thing though I couldn't find the confirmation. I think it's worth mentioning.
The second thing is the introduction of bombers. You mentioned them only briefly, but it was a big deal and I think that the tribute to the engeneer Igor Sikorsky should be given here as well. He developed the first bomber ever and a pretty good one. Actually, the life of this man is pretty fascinating, so maybe you'll make something about him and his "Ilya Muromets" aircrafts.
Yes, they are definitely interesting (and brutal).
hey, love this channel. just want to point out that the photo at 4:31 is NOT of a sopwith camel. you can tell because of the curved upper wing. the camel's wing was flat.
Thanks!
What is the picture at 8:16 showing? I can't even understand what I'm looking at!
The aircraft at 4:33 is a late-war Sopwith Snipe, not a Camel. The rounded fuselage and the small vertical fin are giveaways.
great vid!
Excellent and very fun piece :)
thank you
One other problem with pushers in WW1: If you crash landed and nosed over (pretty common at the time) the crew could expect the engine to land on top of them.
You forgot one of the most famous aces, Lord Flashheart of the Twenty Minuters.
Hey Indy and the team. In your "Religious Leaders During WW1" Out of the Trenches video you went in depth into South America during the war, talking about about all the countries there. But you missed the countries Guyana, French Guyana, and Suriname, so I was hoping you could say what they did. My whole family is from there, so I'm interested in the role my ancestors may have had. Thanks.
Bobbyjoeangus Not an expert at all, but I'm pretty sure that all 3 of those were colonies of the Europeans at the time (while French Guyana is still held by France). Guyana was British, and Suriname was Dutch.
Probably the 2 (British and French) of them held by the allies mainly just sent supplies for the war effort, and maybe some troops, despite their quite small populations. The Dutch one - who knows, as Netherlands were neutral. Again, just an input from me on what probably happened as there's no other replies.
It's ironic that while the great war was considered a major boost in the airplane development, it actually hindered it too. Junkers development was set back some as their planes were largely incompatible with the air combat doctrines back in the day. They did produce a small number of Junkers D.I all-metal monoplane fighters for the navy in late 1917 (Junkers made the first all-metal monoplane in 1915), but Junker's success really 'took off', so to speak, with the post-war F.13 passenger transport plane.
SO! there I was, in my state-of-the-art flying machine, when this brick clean took orf me right ear...
I love all your vids
1:15
@ 5:00 "World war one marked the end of pusher aircraft". Sorry to correct you, but some did see service after WW1. Most particularly the B36. But also aircraft like the Supermarine Walrus, The SAAB 21, Several Flying Wing, The Reaper drone and so on. But you are correct that WW1 was the last widespread usage of the pusher configuration.
It just dawned on me, considering the life expectancy, is there any record of pilots that served through the whole war?
Jimbo Jones Yours truly Herman Göhring for example. Or do you mean someone who pioneered and flew from Day 1 till armistice?
The Great War I was wondering if any of the original pilots were still flying by the end of the war.
Jimbo Jones I like the story of Captain Roy Arthur Brown. He was the last pilot to fight the "The Red Baron" (Manfred von Richthofen) and is credited with fatally shooting him down (but Captain Brown never claimed the "kill"-and researchers believe that it was actually from Aussie ground fire). Brown never lost a pilot in his flight during combat-a rare distinction for an air unit commander of that war. This was due largely to his demands for a "breaking in" period in which new pilots flew over the fights just to see how they worked.
Jimbo Jones Considering the list of German fighting aces that survived WW2 with hundreds of kills to their name and uncountable amounts of combat missions flown in western europe, eastern front in Russia and Italy and Africa I would assume that many good pilots that flew the entire war did indeed survive.
The Great War You're Göhring?! :P
These folks are great 👍
I think I am right in saying that the picture at 4:30 isn't the F1 camel. The upper wing didn't cut above the pilots head and it appears to bulky. of coarse I could be wrong. please tell me if I am
Can you do a special episode on helmets, or if not that specifically then each army's field uniform & equipment in general?
flyforce16 Already working on it.
cool stuff with sub titles Indy ty
Could you name the largest air forces as I know that in 1910 France had more planes than Germany, Britain, Italy, Russia, Japan and the US combined
The French air Force he's the oldest in the world it was founded in 1909. also the largest.
Christophe But in 1914 Germany had more planes than France :)
Christophe Source?
Also there was the italian ace Francesco Baracca,he had 34 confirmed kills and his badge is the Ferrari badge today,he was a hero for Italy and the Freccie Tricolori(the italian planes used for shows)dedicated a show for the 100th anniversary of his death.
And only now i saw the video were you talk about him...i feel really stupid
Billy Mitchell, who is quoted at the end, wrote one of the two most influential treatises on airpower development after the war.
If you are interesting in reading about how airpower theory was developed, I recommend Billy Mitchells "winged defence" and Guilo Douhet's "The command of the air".
Thanks for the suggestion.
Billy Mitchell is on a documentary here in Britain about so called "eastenders" it's a really interesting watch that would recommend for anybody interested in that period of British history.
Early in the war the Germans were very successful with a funny little recon aircraft known as the Taube. Since the allies had no effective fighters, and the soldiers on the ground were still learning how to shoot them down, they were very useful for the Germans as a reconnasaince platform. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etrich_Taube
Not to mention they are also interesting looking.
Wayne Moyer Wasn't Günther Plüschow flying one of those when he shot down an enemy plane with a Luger?
The Great War I'm pretty sure that is correct and was credited with the first air to air kill. Just think about the level of marksmanship. It's almost mind boggling.
***** really cool, thanks
Beautiful bird-like design on the Etrich Taube.
Greetings, thank you for the amazing content on your channel it is very educational.
I want to propose one tiny thing on one of your future episodes. So here it is, if you guys feel like it deserves minute or two in one of your episodes it would be great!
Anti-aircraft warfare (First plane crushed from ground)
On the September 30th, 1915 in Serbia three enemy airplanes were flying towards the city of Kragujevac. When they reached destination they dropped 45 bombs. Serbian soldiers were trying to hit the airplanes with guns and pistols but surely with no success at all. Then the guy named Radoje Ljutovac with not so modern Turkish cannon taken from First Balkan war in 1912, aimed at one of the airplanes and took it down with first shot. At first the commander was furious that a soldier fired without any permission but when he saw the result they went together by the airplane and saw it crushed with dead pilots. Radoje Ljutovac saluted and commemorated to dead soldiers. The interesting thing is that this was fist airplane crushed from the ground action in the history of the Anti-aircraft warfare.
Radoje Ljutovac should be pronunced something like: Radoye Lioutovats
Kind regards!
Iphikrates0419 Thanks! Probably something that we will mention in September then.
Yea! awesome. thx.
Great video ! Have you done or will you be doing a video on the "Lafayette Escadrille"?
+prydonian460 We are planning to have an episode, yes.
AYY BILLY BISHOP REPRESENTING CANADA!!🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦
Aircraft pictured @4:29 is a Sopwith Snipe, not the earlier Camel.
lol got a Battlefield 1 ad on this vid
lol
love this episode, so far no historical inaccuracies :)
Edit: Mannock had 61 confirmed kills.
If we are going for unconfirmed kills Fonck is #1 still, but Collishaw is up there as well
Great special! I still hope that Anton Fokker will get his own episode.
Karst Reitsma Yes!
The Great War You meen that he will get his own episode? And if so, than I concidr this channel to be the best thing that has ever been on TH-cam.
Karst Reitsma Yes, he is on our list for sure. Can't tell you when though.
The Great War Thank you !!!!!!!!
I noticed that you mentioned the pusher-prop ceased to be used in warfare after WWI. I thought you'd be interested to know that it's back! I flew the RQ-7 Shadow (a UAV) in Afghanistan, which was a pusher-prop, with a whopping airspeed of 70 knots! It's primarily used for RSTA missions, though it can also use special antennas to push out ground comms, and the new extended wings have two hard-points underneath. Also, it's pretty reliable, as we hardly ever crashed any :)
5:47 isn't that a Fokker E.3 Eindecker?
+Ignar Åndersjøn the Husky (YOU TRIGGERED ME)
That's a Moraine-Saulnier N.
The Fokker Eindecker series is a copy of the Moraine-Saulnier H, which was a predecessor of the N.
Molo9000
Really? I remember that the British captured one or so E.3's that were mostly undamaged and put British roundels on it. Also how they learned about the mechanism that allowed the bullet to shoot as it passes the blade instead of the risk of the blade being shot to shreds.
2:02)One of the first flakwagens. Feld Laden Anti-Luft Kraft kanone. Truck mounted.
7:31)The Red Baron's younger brother shot down more planes. He left out two men Top Guns from the US. Captain Edward Vernon Richenbacker of the La Fayette Esquadrille. LieuTenant Eugene Bullard, from Columbus, Georgia (US) was in one of the squadrons. He was ahead of the Tuskegee group by about 25 years.
Bring this guy back!
A good example of the progression and emphasis of pilot skill over ease of use as the war went on was the Sopwith Camel. It had a radial engine, which spun in the same direction as the propeller. They were notoriously dangerous for inexperienced plots because the torque of the engine and propeller spinning in the same direction was known to flip the whole aircraft on takeoff. Experienced pilots would stand on the opposite rudder to counteract the effect until the machine was airborne.
MrDoctorCrow Wow, that sounds amazing and dangerous.
The Great War It really is. The number of pilots who died in non-combat related incidents was almost as high as the combat loss rate (385 in accidents, 413 in combat).
www.theaerodrome.com/aircraft/gbritain/sopwith_camel.php
The aircraft shown at 6:57 is a Rumpler Eindecker. "Eindecker" simply means "monoplane." The famous Fokker Eindecker series, of which the narration speaks, was a bit different. We see one of those at 7:05.
I'm curious about the disputed kills of Mick Mannock - which ones are disputed, and why are they disputed? Do you think there is credence to either side's argument whether they are Mannock's kills or not? Could you possibly do a video on some of the more disputed issues of the war, including this?
Will you go into more detail about the Aces at some point? WWI aviation was utterly fascinating, one of my favorite history subjects.
Also, pusher configurations definitely didn't end with WWI, there have been many fighters, attackers, prototypes, and civilian aircraft since then that use a pusher configuration to gain *more* speed and maneuverability. The reason WWI fighters switched to tractor configurations was because it was far easier to cool the engines with the air being blown over the engines and through radiators at a faster rate.
Creepy Productions We will do more episodes on the aces for sure! And of course the pusher concept didn't go away, but wouldn't you say tractor is the main concept?
Beautifully produces Dutch Fokker planes. They truly were the best.
Born to soldier from the horse Back to the sky that's how legends will arise
He's flying!
At 4:29 the plane is not an F.1 Camel. It's a Sopwith Snipe of 43 Sqn.
are you going to make an episode about queen Wilhelmina of the netherlands?
Cool. Now I know who Toronto's smaller airport is named after and what he did.
Have you done (or will you do) anything on the Escadrille Lafayette?
So how and when did allied fighters start using synchronised machine guns?
and @ 6:57; when is an Fokker Eindekker not a Fokker Eindekker, when it's a Rumpler Tauben..
What a cool desk,wonder where he got it.
Correction: first powered aircraft is the "14 bis" made by Santos Dumont.
0:54 that's gotta be the smallest aircraft carriers I have ever seen
How does the interruptor gear work? (The one the germans invented which prevented the gun from hitting the propellor).
+Naomi Nekomimi
I want to know too, but something tells Me I wouldn't be able to understand it.
+Naomi Nekomimi I'll try to make it simple. Instead of interrupting the firing of a fully automatic machine gun, they made the machine gun semi automatic (requiring a new trigger pull for each shot) and attached a mechanism to the propeller that would pull the trigger whenever it was safe to fire a round.
So instead of the pilot directly pulling the trigger of the gun they would basically be turning on an automatic trigger that would fire a single synchronized shot over and over.
coast2coast00 Oh, that's very clever and cool!
coast2coast00
I was thinking it would have to work that way, but I have no understanding of the finer mechanics behind it.
+Naomi Nekomimi You should check out the Modern Marvels episode on WW1 technology, they explain the interrupter mechanism a lot better.
Nitpick warning: The Sopwith Camel shown is actually the much later and more powerfull Sopwith Snipe..
I could be wrong but at 4:28 that's look like Sopwith Snipe not the Camel
+speedabit Possible, our archive is not perfect.
What was the casualty rate for pilots in WW1?
Danox94 given that the average life expectancy of a British pilot in 1917 is only about 4 days to 2 weeks, we can say that there is a high casualty rate.
Danox94
Depends on the time frame. In "Bloody April," 1917, aircrew lasted about 14 days. Surviving your fist five missions was about 50/50. As German oposition waned later in the war, it improved. This, however, was reversed when the RAF was switched to ground attack duties at the time of the German Mach 1918 Michel offensives. Small arms fire could easily down a wood and fabric aircraft. There were no parachutes until the very end, and on the German side only. Herman Goring parachuted to safety shortly before the war ended.
Not true that push aircraft are gone, ultralights still use them in some designs
can you do a video on the Lafayette Escadrille? It was featured in the movie "Flyboys"
04:29 Indy says "the famous Sopwith Camel" but that in fact is a Sopwith Snipe is it not?
Could you please talk about WWI submarines?
DreamMarko We will of course. An episode about the navies will happen soon and submarines might get an additional episode.
Thanks so much :) I am fascinated with the navy, especially aircraft carriers and submarines. Even if I know a bit about the subject, I know very little about ones from WWI and even less about submarines.
one picture near end of film, shows ship in water, with airplane above, and strange cloud or smoke formation high above plane, streaming down like a water curtain, for miles across the full frame image, behind ship and plane. please explain image if you can. thanks, randy
+randy tinney Prototype chemtrail - considered too obvious, the system was not refined enough for deployment until the mid-1990s. j/k
Actually, i recently watched a video of one of the zeppelins arriving NYC on an around-the-world, and almost like the city's fire boats will salute incoming ships with their water cannons, an airplane flew across its path and emitted one of these things like a curtain that the dirigible flew through. Some sort of "daylight fireworks" I imagine.