Why a triplane?

On Feb 2, 4:38 pm, Ron Wanttaja wrote:
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would have quickly superseded it, then.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.

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

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....

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....

Ron Wanttaja

In one out of the way corner in the WWI section of the USAF Museum,
there's a couple-inch square swatch of doped fabric in a frame,
purported to be from the DR.I Richtofen died in.

It's actually kind of a magenta color, but there's certain to be some
fading involved...