How fast were ww1 planes

A number of World War I aircraft stand out as notable, perhaps less so for their overall performance, but rather for their impact on future development.

The French Nieuport series of fighters — 11, 16, 17, 24, 27 and 28 — took advantage of the French superiority in engine development and production and were built in substantial numbers.

Rotary engines, while generally reliable, had horsepower limitations and increased aerodynamic drag. Developments and improvements in technology inevitably led to changes in employment techniques and principles. Shortly thereafter, however, effectiveness and deadliness were improved by flying in pairs. Formation flying with multiple aircraft followed, as the notions of mutual observation, firepower, and support grew. Oswald Boelke took the lead in understanding the relationship between aircraft technology and tactical employment.

His fundamentals remain a central part of airpower and fighter doctrine even today. Technological improvements changed alongside doctrine. One of the most successful German designs, the Albatross, capitalized on German automotive advances by using liquid-cooled in-line Mercedes engines.

This allowed the fuselage of the aircraft to be further streamlined with a corresponding increase in overall top speed.

Ranging across five models, D. Va, these fighter aircraft proved superior to many Allied types for several months in and were responsible for thousands of British and French casualties. The S. It was introduced in April , and eventually more than 5, were built. Flown by famous aces like Albert Ball , Mick Mannock , and James McCudden , it was a formidable fighter aircraft, powered by a h.

Hispano-Suiza engine. Despite its favorable maneuverability, in many ways, the S. An exception to this rule might be the Fokker Dr. Copying a previous British Sopwith design, Fokker produced very limited numbers of a triplane powered by a rotary engine. Slower and more fragile than its contemporaries, the Dr. I nevertheless exhibited amazing aerobatic capabilities, and, in the hands of experts like Richthofen and Werner Voss , brought lasting fame to the design. Britain produced an aircraft every bit the equal of the Dr.

I in combat, however. The Sopwith Camel F. A rotary-engined biplane with two synchronized machine guns, it was relatively fast, maneuverable, and had a service ceiling of nearly 20, feet. A brief description of biplane terminology is contained in appendix D. A small nacelle situated on the bottom wing contained the pilot's cockpit and gun in the forward portion and the horsepower Gnome Monosoupape rotary engine in the pusher position in the rear.

The horizontal and vertical tail surfaces were mounted behind the engine on an arrangement of four strut-and-wire-braced outriggers, or booms, which extended rearward from the wings. Cutouts in the trailing edges of the upper and lower wings provided clearance for the rotating propeller, which had four blades to minimize the extent of the cutouts and reduce the required spacing of the outriggers. But few planes were initially available for war in — France, for example, had a fleet of fewer than airplanes — and those weren't designed for war.

Most could fly for only two or three hours, had no weapons installed and were rather slow. Consider, for example, the B. With a horsepower engine — comparable to the outboard motor on a small bass boat — and a flight time of no more than three hours, the B. And without machine guns or other weaponry, early dogfights were little more than airborne duels: Pilots routinely carried pistols and rifles to shoot at enemy pilots. In an encounter over Belgium in , a British airman whose pistol was out of ammunition simply threw the handgun at a German pilot and missed.

Bombing runs in the first months of World War I were similarly hit-or-miss: A co-pilot if there was one would simply drop a small bomb over the side of the plane. Actually hitting a target was more a matter of luck than of skill.

Despite these early limitations, military planners and flying aces saw great potential in their flying machines. Never before had generals considered bombing targets like artillery factories that were hundreds of miles behind enemy lines. Nonmilitary targets — bridges, hospitals, railroad stations, business districts, churches and civilian homes — would also come under fire from above.