Why a triplane?

On Feb 2, 7:41 pm, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
FledgeIII wrote :



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DR-1) would have quickly superseded it, then.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...

Yeah, it was ripped to shreds by souvenier hunters. Some if it is in
Canada in a museum there including the seat.
One of his tripes was preserved and displayed in a museum in germany,
but it was destroyed in a bombing raid during the war.

Bertie

I also seem to recall reading someplace or other that one of - if not
primary - motivations with tripes was to decrease span without
sacrificing wing area - shortening the moments to increase roll and
yaw rates.

Kind of squares with stories of how guys like Voss flew the thing -
bat**** crazy; flat turns, snap rolls, you name it.

Another thing I recall reading was that it offered some advantages in
visibility - high aspect ratio (narrow chord)/low stagger wings, the
middle wing aligned right on line of sight where it obscured the least
lateral vision.

Then again, I could be all wt on that...