Ron Wanttaja wrote in
:

On Sat, 2 Feb 2008 09:44:56 +0000 (UTC), Bertie the Bunyip
wrote:

Ron Wanttaja wrote in
:

One would have thought the Fokker D-6 (essentially a biplane DR-1)
would have quickly superseded it, then. But I suppose Fokker
finally getting the Mercedes engine let him jump to the bigger D-7.

I don't think the D-6 was quite as good as the Albatros, but it was
probably better than the Triplane in most ways. I think the Triplane
had it;s limited success as a sort of accident. Fokker was fond of
just grabbing bits they had developed and grafting them to other bits
and then lengthening this, shortening that until he came up with
something that worked.

I heard once that Tony Fokker (a Dutch national) was somehow under
suspicion by the German government, and the military had refused to
give him access to the newest engines...so he designed the best
fighters he could around an old one until the Germans changed their
minds.


Never heard that but it is quite possible, He was pretty mercenary and
probably would have godn to work for the other side if he was able to
get across.

I always loved the japanese kite face on Voss's airplane.

Back in the '60s, DC Comics had a series about a German WWI pilot
called "Enemy Ace," which was based on Richtofen. But "Hans Von
Hammer's" all-red triplane featured Voss' kite face, as shown on the
current image on my Fly Baby's baggage door:

http://www.bowersflybaby.com/pix/enemy%20ace.jpg

I remember it well. I think i got the whole run back then! about three
years?

One last bit of DR1 lore is that Manfred von Richtofen had four of
them. He also preferred the French Gnome engine over the Oberursel
whaich was basically a copy of the Gnome anyway. His airplanes were
all equipped with Gnomes captured form downed airplanes.

Well, uhhh, maybe. I'd heard that Oberursel sometimes put Gnome data
plates on its engines, with an additional plate explaining it was a
"captured" engine. Even in the middle of a war, they were worried
about licensing laws....

He he. That was more likely to keep the pilots happy. Or do you have nfo
that it was due to licencing law?

Thanks for the info about von Richtofen's four DR-1s. Back as a kid
building models, I noticed that none of the sources seemed to agree as
to whether his machine was all-red or otherwise. Having more than one
airplane would explain it....

Well, the dbate rages even over those four!

One other thing about them is that all those models had one aileron
larger than the other. One of the clearest pics of a tripe is oone that
shows this clearly, but it appears that it was probablyl just due to a
field repair using one off an older or newer machine. Someone did a
drawing of it like that ( think it might have been William Wylam) and it
was taken as fact that they were all like that and it was to compensate
for torque. not so!

Bertie