Camel

[Big John]

Lets see if this link works.

Click here: Original Sopwith Camel



Big John

[Big John]

On Sun, 25 Apr 2004 14:20:51 -0500, Big John >
wrote:

>Lets see if this link works.
>
>Click here: Original Sopwith Camel
>
>Big John

Lets see if this link works.

http://www.vintageaviation.net/Original%20Sopwith%20Camel.htm

OK. Any takers? I don't want to get into a bidding war. Wonder if he
wil let you test hop prior to bidding?

Big John

[Paul Tomblin]

In a previous article, Big John > said:
>http://www.vintageaviation.net/Original%20Sopwith%20Camel.htm
>
>OK. Any takers? I don't want to get into a bidding war. Wonder if he
>wil let you test hop prior to bidding?

As long as you understand the principle of "You break it, you bought it".
I understand Camels were exceptionally hard to fly.


--
Paul Tomblin > http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
"I had to kill him -- he was starting to make sense."

[Jay Honeck]

> OK. Any takers? I don't want to get into a bidding war. Wonder if he
> wil let you test hop prior to bidding?

$1.6 million! Wow -- we have a Sopwith Camel carburetor at the Inn -- with
inflated prices like this, it must be worth around $30K!

;-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[G.R. Patterson III]

Jay Honeck wrote:
>
> > OK. Any takers? I don't want to get into a bidding war. Wonder if he
> > wil let you test hop prior to bidding?
>
> $1.6 million! Wow -- we have a Sopwith Camel carburetor at the Inn -- with
> inflated prices like this, it must be worth around $30K!

Lessee - there's only one original Camel flying out there (according to this ad), and
it already has a carburetor. Nope. Don't think so.

George Patterson
If you don't tell lies, you never have to remember what you said.

[Tom Sixkiller]

"G.R. Patterson III" > wrote in message
...
>
>
> Jay Honeck wrote:
> >
> > > OK. Any takers? I don't want to get into a bidding war. Wonder if he
> > > wil let you test hop prior to bidding?
> >
> > $1.6 million! Wow -- we have a Sopwith Camel carburetor at the Inn --
with
> > inflated prices like this, it must be worth around $30K!
>
> Lessee - there's only one original Camel flying out there (according to
this ad), and
> it already has a carburetor. Nope. Don't think so.

It doesn't have the ONLY Camel carburetor in existence.

[vincent p. norris]

What kind of a carburetor did a rotary engine have? There was no
throttle.

vince norris

[G.R. Patterson III]

"vincent p. norris" wrote:
>
> What kind of a carburetor did a rotary engine have? There was no
> throttle.

Depends on the engine. The Camel typically came with a Le Rhone, a Clerget, or a
Bentley rotary. All three had carburetors, apparently in addition to the "dribble
feed" fuel intake used by most rotaries. Carb parts for the Le Rhone are sold at
http://www.lerhoneauburn.com and you will find a rather vague photo there. Looks like
a new carb would be worth somewhere around $5,000.

George Patterson
If you don't tell lies, you never have to remember what you said.

[BÿkrDan]

"Tom Sixkiller" > wrote in message
...
>
> "G.R. Patterson III" > wrote in message
> ...
> >
> >
> > >
> > > $1.6 million! Wow -- we have a Sopwith Camel carburetor at the
Inn --
> with
> > > inflated prices like this, it must be worth around $30K!
> >
> > Lessee - there's only one original Camel flying out there (according to
> this ad), and
> > it already has a carburetor. Nope. Don't think so.
>
> It doesn't have the ONLY Camel carburetor in existence.
>

I think he's just saying that the market for Camel carburetor's is very,
very tight right now!

[Jay Honeck]

> What kind of a carburetor did a rotary engine have? There was no
> throttle.

Beats the hell out of me. It's a bit bigger than a thimble, doesn't look
anything like a modern carburetor, (in fact, it doesn't look like it would
do much of anything in particular), and is only of interest because of its
history.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[vincent p. norris]

>> What kind of a carburetor did a rotary engine have? There was no
>> throttle.
>
>Beats the hell out of me. It's a bit bigger than a thimble, doesn't look
>anything like a modern carburetor, (in fact, it doesn't look like it would
>do much of anything in particular), and is only of interest because of its
>history.

Thanks, Jay. But how do you know it's a carburetor? Is it marked?

vince norris

[Peter Duniho]

"vincent p. norris" > wrote in message
...
> Thanks, Jay. But how do you know it's a carburetor? Is it marked?

That's probably why it's as big as a thimble. If it weren't for the fact
that "Original Carburetor from Historic Sopwith Camel" had to be stamped on
the side, it could've been just a bit bigger than a grain of rice. :)

[Big John]

Go to:

http://www.stormbirds.com/project/

They have three Me 262's for sale for about $2 Mil each, less the
J-34's which are readily available.

Compare this with the Camel at $1.6 Mil.

The 262 would be a lot easer to fly than the Camel for the low time
pilot. Also 540 mph vs 100+ mph

Either would be a 'show' stopper at Osh or SnF <G>

Big John


On Sun, 25 Apr 2004 14:27:38 -0500, Big John >
wrote:

>On Sun, 25 Apr 2004 14:20:51 -0500, Big John >
>wrote:
>
>>Lets see if this link works.
>>
>>Click here: Original Sopwith Camel
>>
>>Big John
>
>Lets see if this link works.
>
>http://www.vintageaviation.net/Original%20Sopwith%20Camel.htm
>
>OK. Any takers? I don't want to get into a bidding war. Wonder if he
>wil let you test hop prior to bidding?
>
>Big John

[Jay Honeck]

> Thanks, Jay. But how do you know it's a carburetor? Is it marked?

The guy who donated it to the inn told me that's what it was -- and he's a
pretty straight-up guy.

Heck, it could be a sewing machine part, for all I know...

But, then, the same could be said for the Mustang parts we've got, and the
B-25 parts, and the Mosquito instruments, and... Unless you've got the
parts manual for each plane, there's really no good way to know what you've
got...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[G.R. Patterson III]

Jay Honeck wrote:
>
> Beats the hell out of me. It's a bit bigger than a thimble, ....

If it's that size, it's probably the nozzle for the fuel inlet to the induction
system used on most or all of the rotaries. Take a picture of it and send it to the
people at Rhinebeck. They'll know for sure.

George Patterson
If you don't tell lies, you never have to remember what you said.

[vincent p. norris]

>They have three Me 262's for sale for about $2 Mil each, less the
>J-34's which are readily available.
>
>Compare this with the Camel at $1.6 Mil.

Besides being cheaper, the Camel would be a hell of a lot more fun!
>
>The 262 would be a lot easer to fly than the Camel for the low time
>pilot.

That might be true. But back in 1918, guys with less time than
anyone in this news group, probably, got into Camels and flew away..
Some killed themselves, but most of them did not. Survival of the
fittest.

>Also 540 mph vs 100+ mph

Yeah, but unless you're illegally low, you have no sense of moving at
540.

But the one I'd REALLY like to have is that SE-5 shown on the same web
site.

Flying an SE-5, you don't have to gulp Castor Oil.

vince norris

[G.R. Patterson III]

"vincent p. norris" wrote:
>

> That might be true. But back in 1918, guys with less time than
> anyone in this news group, probably, got into Camels and flew away..
> Some killed themselves, but most of them did not.

Sort of backwards. Most killed themselves, but some did not. The loss rate during
training was far higher than the loss rate in combat.

George Patterson
If you don't tell lies, you never have to remember what you said.

[[email protected]]

On Wed, 28 Apr 2004 23:14:39 -0400, vincent p. norris >
wrote:

>That might be true. But back in 1918, guys with less time than
>anyone in this news group, probably, got into Camels and flew away..
>Some killed themselves, but most of them did not. Survival of the
>fittest.

The history books describe the Camel as an airplane far more dangerous
to those learning to fly it than combat with the Germans.

It was extremely short coupled and the large prop bolted to the
spinning rotory engine resulted in a remarkable turning radius
opposite the direction of the prop/engine rotation. Some have
described the turning radius as being scarcely larger than the
wingspan. Unfortunately, few pilots could use this maneuverability
because loss of control was always close at hand.

The intersting contradiction is that most shootdowns, in WWI, occured
from stalking and firing from behind and below the target aircraft, or
swift pounces from above and behind. During the "furball" type of
swirling dogfights, few got shot down as everyone was maneuvering to
avoid collision and get on someone's tail or get someone off theirs.
The smart guys stayed off to one side and above and pounced on pilots
who strayed out of the mass of airplanes without paying attention to
their surroundings.

The Germans seemed to understand the proper lessons learned from WWI
and what constituted an effective fighter as the Messerschmitt Bf109
was not designed with dogfighting in mind. It was almost purely a
"bouncer", and aircraft that excelled in high speed dives upon an
unaware enemy. But the cockpit was so narrow that the pilots
literally could not apply as much force to the stick as they could
have had they a few more inches to within the cockpit to brace
themselves. (notes from British pilots who tested a captured 109
during the Battle of Britain)

In addition, the 109 had a higher wingloading than either the Spitfire
or the Hurricane, and it's stall speed that deturmines how tightly a
fighter turns.

In WWI as WWII, it was the careful stalk and high speed bounce that
accounted for most of the shootdowns, not the dogfight.

Corky Scott

[vincent p. norris]

>> Some killed themselves, but most of them did not.
>
>Sort of backwards. Most killed themselves, but some did not.

I have no numbers, and wonder if anyone has. But I doubt that 51% or
more killed themselves.

> The loss rate during training was far higher than the loss rate in combat.

Yeah, I've heard and read that many times. The same was said about WW
II.

But I got to Pensacola only four years after VJ Day; and during the
year I was there, in Basic, with hundreds of cadets going through
training, only three fatalities occurred: two students, one
instructor.

I don't recall how many fatalities occurred during the six months I
was in Advanced. None occurred at NAS Corpus Christi, where I was,
but there might have been a couple at other fields.

We weren't flying Camels, of course, but we were flying the same
aircraft the Navy used during WW II.

But even if more pilots died learning to fly the Camel than died it
combat, that doesn't mean it was more than 51%.

vince norris

[[email protected]]

On Thu, 29 Apr 2004 23:00:15 -0400, vincent p. norris >
wrote:

>Yeah, I've heard and read that many times. The same was said about WW
>II.

Vince, I'm not sure WWII training was as dangerous as that of WWI. I
don't see how it could have been. The trainers of WWI were a
hodgepodge of many types and few things were normalised as they are
now. They stalled abrubtly, had extremely steep power off descent and
were very unstable on the ground. In addition, the unreliability of
the engines was legendary. For a while, few individuals understood
how much training was necessary to qualify a person as a bonified
pilot.

Given that situation, it's not surprising how high the fatality rate
was. When you graduate your students, who had only a few hours total
time, from the "relatively" stable trainer to the Camel, which was
ridiculously unstable, of course there were lots of accidents.

Corky Scott

[G.R. Patterson III]

"vincent p. norris" wrote:
>
> Yeah, I've heard and read that many times. The same was said about WW
> II.

I've never heard that about WWII, but, in any case, it's not true. A couple things
*were* true about the WWII situation until about 1944; 1) pilots destroyed more
aircraft during training than during combat, and 2) most of the pilots in a given
class would not survive the war.

Just finished a book about LeRoy Grover, who enlisted in the RAF in 1941. Flew Spits
before transfering to the USAAF and finishing the war in P-47s. His preliminary
instruction was done in California. Slightly over half of his class survived the war,
but most did not become fighter pilots. Instruction in Spitfires was done at an OTU
in England. There were several crashes every day, and fatalities ran about 1 every 3
days. Of his class there of 42 pilots who graduated, 3 survived the war intact, 3
survived but were injured so badly they never flew again, and the rest were killed.

George Patterson
If you don't tell lies, you never have to remember what you said.

[vincent p. norris]

>Vince, I'm not sure WWII training was as dangerous as that of WWI. I
>don't see how it could have been. The trainers of WWI were a
>hodgepodge of many types and few things were normalised as they are
>now. They stalled abrubtly, had extremely steep power off descent and
>were very unstable on the ground. In addition, the unreliability of
>the engines was legendary. For a while, few individuals understood
>how much training was necessary to qualify a person as a bonified
>pilot.

I agree with that, Corky. In addition, pilots were reportedly put
into operational types such as Camels and sent into combat with very
few logged hours.

We had somewhat more than 200 hours in SNJs, including formation,
instrument and ACM flying and carrier qualification, before getting
into an operational type. Had the Navy put us into F4Us with only 20
or 30 hours in SNJs, no doubt most cadets would have killed
themselves. (It was called the "Ensign Eliminator" in any case.)

But the point I was making is that grossly exaggerated claims were
made about the fatality rate during WW II, and I am skeptical about
them, and therefore about WW I too.

vince norris

[vincent p. norris]

>I've never heard that about WWII, but, in any case, it's not true. A couple things
>*were* true about the WWII situation until about 1944; 1) pilots destroyed more
>aircraft during training than during combat....

How do you know that? I find that hard to believe.

> and 2) most of the pilots in a given class would not survive the war.

I can't believe that either, George. That means that fatalities
among pilots exeeded 50 percent.
>
>Just finished a book about LeRoy Grover, who enlisted in the RAF in 1941. Flew Spits
>before transfering to the USAAF and finishing the war in P-47s. His preliminary
>instruction was done in California.

I don't understand that. Do you mean he was trained by, or for, the
RAF in California in 1941? I've never heard of such an operation.

>Slightly over half of his class survived the war....

I can believe that losses were quite high among pilots who fought
through the entire war. OTOH, they were much lower among those who
got into combat only a month or two before VE or VJ day.

> There were several crashes every day, and fatalities ran about 1 every 3
>days. Of his class there of 42 pilots who graduated, 3 survived the war intact, 3
>survived but were injured so badly they never flew again, and the rest were killed.

Ensign Gay, of Torpedo 8, could write that he was the only survivor of
his entire squadron; all the others were killed in just a few minutes,
in June 1942. You know that wasn't typical of U.S. Naval Aviators.

And as you may know, something like 98 percent of the residents of
Bedford, Virginia, who served in the army during WW II, were killed
in action on one day in June, 1944.

These cases demonstrate that you can't generalize from a small sample.

vince norris

[Big John]

Vincent

I was in a Navy tail hook Sq (VF-23) for a year. We had 13 pilots and
killed four in a little over a year (peace time). Three ashore and one
deployed to Westpac on the Yorktown.

In the flying units I was in for 28 years, I went to more funerals in
peace time than in war time. You have to parsec that statement as
there were more years of peace time than war time.

Flying is/was a dangerous game.

Big John


On Thu, 29 Apr 2004 23:00:15 -0400, vincent p. norris >
wrote:

>>> Some killed themselves, but most of them did not.
>>
>>Sort of backwards. Most killed themselves, but some did not.
>
>I have no numbers, and wonder if anyone has. But I doubt that 51% or
>more killed themselves.
>
>> The loss rate during training was far higher than the loss rate in combat.
>
>Yeah, I've heard and read that many times. The same was said about WW
>II.
>
>But I got to Pensacola only four years after VJ Day; and during the
>year I was there, in Basic, with hundreds of cadets going through
>training, only three fatalities occurred: two students, one
>instructor.
>
>I don't recall how many fatalities occurred during the six months I
>was in Advanced. None occurred at NAS Corpus Christi, where I was,
>but there might have been a couple at other fields.
>
>We weren't flying Camels, of course, but we were flying the same
>aircraft the Navy used during WW II.
>
>But even if more pilots died learning to fly the Camel than died it
>combat, that doesn't mean it was more than 51%.
>
>vince norris

[G.R. Patterson III]

"vincent p. norris" wrote:
>
> I can't believe that either, George. That means that fatalities
> among pilots exeeded 50 percent.

That's correct for fighter pilots who entered combat prior to about 1944.

> I don't understand that. Do you mean he was trained by, or for, the
> RAF in California in 1941? I've never heard of such an operation.

He was trained by a contractor. A man named Clayton Knight served as a "headhunter"
for the RAF. IIRC, he did the same sort of thing for China, finding pilots for the
AVG. American RAF trainees trained in PT-17s and AT-6s in California before heading
to Canada, where they took ship for Britain. Gover's class graduated 14 pilots to
Canada in late 1941; 7 survived the war.

> I can believe that losses were quite high among pilots who fought
> through the entire war. OTOH, they were much lower among those who
> got into combat only a month or two before VE or VJ day.

Which is why I said "prior to about 1944" in my post.

George Patterson
If you don't tell lies, you never have to remember what you said.

[vincent p. norris]

>I was in a Navy tail hook Sq (VF-23) for a year. We had 13 pilots and
>killed four in a little over a year (peace time). Three ashore and one
>deployed to Westpac on the Yorktown.

I remember that we were told, while at Pensacola, that if a pilot
spent 20 years on a carrier, he had a .25 chance of being killed.

But no one, so far as I know, spent 20 years flying off a carrier.

After I got my wings, I spent 3.5 years flying in the Marine Corps,
2.5 at Cherry Point and one as a FAC at Camp Lejuene as a FAC.

I recall that there were four R4Q crashes, one F7F crash and two
single-engine crashes, all fatal. One F4U ditched, pilot lived. There
may have been more but that's all I can recall.

vince norris