Why a triplane?

Ricky wrote in news:87914aea-450f-4f96-bf63-
:

On Feb 2, 4:40*pm, Matt Whiting wrote:
Ricky wrote:
After reading more on this I have found that the German's were very
concerned with the ability of their aircraft to get above the enemy
as
quickly as possible. An attack from above (especially from out of
the
sun), was found to be an extremely effective method of victory. The
amount of lift generated from 3 wings was found to enhance climb
performance quite significantly, thus affording German pilots the
abilty to attack from above as was desired.

I really doubt that was the reason as lift can easily be increased in
a
number of ways other than adding wings. *I think structural strength
was

the primary reason for more wings in that era.

Matt

Well, hey, that's what I read from a guy who spent years of research
on the Fokker Triplane and then built one himself from scratch. Maybe
he's mistaken? I doubt it.

Well, unles he's an aeronautical engineer, he probably is. A lot of
stuff has been written about that airplane over the years and it just
gets regurgitated. There's no doubt about it, the thing climbed well,
but it would have gone up faster if he had sawn off the middle wing. To
make matters worse, there was no difference in the incidence between the
planes. Each plane affects it's neighbor and each wing has to be set at
the best incidence to take advantage of the available airflow. Sinc the
wing above and the wing below are affecting the flow around the center
it was pretty much just cancelled out.
The Air and Space article mentions that the prop was pitched pretty fine
on the triplane, which may have explained it's climb rate. But Fokker
and the Air Ministry must not have been all that impressd with it since
only a few undred were made as opposed to several thousand Albatros D-
V's. Fokker abandoned it and went the other way with first the D-VII and
then the E-V,/DVIII. The D-VII initialy had a relatively short fuselage
like the DR-1, but test flights ( done by Richtofen, I think) showed the
airplane to be desperately unstable. They lengthend the fuselage over
night and tried again, and probably the best fighter of the war was
born.
He went even further form the multiplane arrangement with the next one
of course.. the EV/D-VIII


Bertie

Ricky wrote:
On Feb 2, 4:40 pm, Matt Whiting wrote:
Ricky wrote:
After reading more on this I have found that the German's were very
concerned with the ability of their aircraft to get above the enemy as
quickly as possible. An attack from above (especially from out of the
sun), was found to be an extremely effective method of victory. The
amount of lift generated from 3 wings was found to enhance climb
performance quite significantly, thus affording German pilots the
abilty to attack from above as was desired.
I really doubt that was the reason as lift can easily be increased in a
number of ways other than adding wings. I think structural strength was
the primary reason for more wings in that era.

Matt

Well, hey, that's what I read from a guy who spent years of research
on the Fokker Triplane and then built one himself from scratch. Maybe
he's mistaken? I doubt it.

I don't. If triplanes were more efficient we would see modern versions
of them.

Matt

Matt Whiting wrote in
:

Ricky wrote:
On Feb 2, 4:40 pm, Matt Whiting wrote:
Ricky wrote:
After reading more on this I have found that the German's were very
concerned with the ability of their aircraft to get above the enemy
as quickly as possible. An attack from above (especially from out
of the sun), was found to be an extremely effective method of
victory. The amount of lift generated from 3 wings was found to
enhance climb performance quite significantly, thus affording
German pilots the abilty to attack from above as was desired.
I really doubt that was the reason as lift can easily be increased
in a number of ways other than adding wings. I think structural
strength was the primary reason for more wings in that era.

Matt

Well, hey, that's what I read from a guy who spent years of research
on the Fokker Triplane and then built one himself from scratch. Maybe
he's mistaken? I doubt it.

I don't. If triplanes were more efficient we would see modern
versions of them.


Well, in a way you do. Double slotted fowler flaps....


Bertie

Ricky wrote:
On Feb 2, 4:40 pm, Matt Whiting wrote:
Ricky wrote:
After reading more on this I have found that the German's were very
concerned with the ability of their aircraft to get above the enemy as
quickly as possible. An attack from above (especially from out of the
sun), was found to be an extremely effective method of victory. The
amount of lift generated from 3 wings was found to enhance climb
performance quite significantly, thus affording German pilots the
abilty to attack from above as was desired.
I really doubt that was the reason as lift can easily be increased in a
number of ways other than adding wings. I think structural strength was
the primary reason for more wings in that era.

Matt

Well, hey, that's what I read from a guy who spent years of research
on the Fokker Triplane and then built one himself from scratch. Maybe
he's mistaken? I doubt it.

I'd be curious to see his research. It seems quite counter to every
other authoritative source I've seen such as:

http://www.airspacemag.com/issues/20...ron.php?page=1

Care to post your research source?

Matt

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


There's a raging debate amongst WW1 nerds about the color schemes of his
aircraft. The standard on the DR1 was to cover it in blue fabric and
then paing the upper sides with a worn out brush in a mix of silver and
olive in a diagonal streaky way giving a sort of camoflage. Richtofen,
of course, painted his red, but each of his airplanes had a different
degree of red on it. The one he died in seems to have been the reddest,
but it may have been only the upper surface of the upper wing ( there is
a phot of that airplane with him in it before his death) and another
with all upper surfaces red. There is a poor photo of one tha appears to

there are original sections of the red triplane's fabric on display in
the Canberra War Memorial, Australia.

Stealth Pilot

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


There's a raging debate amongst WW1 nerds about the color schemes of his
aircraft. The standard on the DR1 was to cover it in blue fabric and
then paing the upper sides with a worn out brush in a mix of silver and
olive in a diagonal streaky way giving a sort of camoflage. Richtofen,
of course, painted his red, but each of his airplanes had a different
degree of red on it. The one he died in seems to have been the reddest,
but it may have been only the upper surface of the upper wing ( there is
a phot of that airplane with him in it before his death) and another
with all upper surfaces red. There is a poor photo of one tha appears to

there are original sections of the red triplane's fabric on display in
the Canberra War Memorial, Australia.

Oh there's no question they all had loads of red on them. It's how much.
These guys would have made pilgrimages to the fabric, believe me! The one
he died in was supposed to be the "all red" one, but there;s some question
if the undersurfaces were still the clear doped blue fabric. Any souvenier
hunters would naturally want the red parts, so anything else was probably
left on the airplane.



Bertie

On Feb 3, 6:51 am, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
FledgeIII wrote :

On Feb 2, 7:41 pm, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
FledgeIII wrote
innews:7921eb53-dcc7-4bce-984a-





om:

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.

Yeah, that would be one of the reasons. Bipes are the same lots of wing
area but you're affecting a smaller body of air. If you look at an
airplane nose on and draw a circel around it which just touches the
wingtips, you have a rough idea of the volume of air influenced by the
airplane as it flies along. A bipe or tripe will affect a smaller area.
It's morre compicated than that, of course, but it's a good ROT

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

Yeah I read a report on a modern one years ago and apparently it's yaw
behaviour is very strange indeed. He said it was nearly impossible to
tell if you were skidding as the thing would just fly along with the
wings level and the ailerons neutral and going mare sideways than
straight ahead. You had to be on the rudder all the time. Vigorous
application of the rudder would initiate mad flat turns of ridiculously
small radius,whihc apparently made the thing a very good gun platform.
It must have been a tremedous advantage in surprise terms alone.



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...

As Dudley said, I believe you're completely blind on landing, but all
the bipes of tha era had vis issues. There were some weird experiments n
that direction as well. The DH5 used negative stagger and had the
cockpit in front of the wings, for instance. The Sopwith Dolphin had a
weird aproach that's hard to describe.

Bertie



Yeah I read a report on a modern one years ago and apparently it's yaw
behaviour is very strange indeed. He said it was nearly impossible to
tell if you were skidding as the thing would just fly along with the
wings level and the ailerons neutral and going mare sideways than
straight ahead. You had to be on the rudder all the time. Vigorous
application of the rudder would initiate mad flat turns of ridiculously
small radius,whihc apparently made the thing a very good gun platform.
It must have been a tremedous advantage in surprise terms alone.

Wouldn't be surprised if that's the reason pictures from the time -
and later on in movies like The Blue Max show DR.Is with streamers
trailing from the interplanes; most likely as big 'ole honkin' yaw
strings...

Good point on the early D.VII fuselage; was thinking about that
myself. IIRC, the prototype had the same small "comma shaped" rudder
stab as the DR.I; they added the forward strake/fin when they
lengthened the fuselage.

On Feb 3, 8:06*am, Matt Whiting wrote:
Ricky wrote:
On Feb 2, 4:40 pm, Matt Whiting wrote:
Ricky wrote:
After reading more on this I have found that the German's were very
concerned with the ability of their aircraft to get above the enemy as
quickly as possible. An attack from above (especially from out of the
sun), was found to be an extremely effective method of victory. The
amount of lift generated from 3 wings was found to enhance climb
performance quite significantly, thus affording German pilots the
abilty to attack from above as was desired.
I really doubt that was the reason as lift can easily be increased in a
number of ways other than adding wings. *I think structural strength was
the primary reason for more wings in that era.

Matt

Well, hey, that's what I read from a guy who spent years of research
on the Fokker Triplane and then built one himself from scratch. Maybe
he's mistaken? I doubt it.

I'd be curious to see his research. *It seems quite counter to every
other authoritative source I've seen such as:

http://www.airspacemag.com/issues/20.../red_baron.php...

Care to post your research source?

Matt- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Wasn't research exactly, just the builder/owner of a "Fokker" Triplane
commenting on his own research into the plane. He's Canadian, I think,
and built one from the ground up with a partner, then sold it in the
early 80s. I think it was on Youtube, lemme see if I can find it
again.

Ricky

FledgeIII wrote in
:

On Feb 3, 6:51 am, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
FledgeIII wrote
innews:229c0d8d-7fae-4be0-8c58-

om:

On Feb 2, 7:41 pm, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
FledgeIII wrote
innews:7921eb53-dcc7-4bce-984a-





om:

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.

Yeah, that would be one of the reasons. Bipes are the same lots of
wing area but you're affecting a smaller body of air. If you look at
an airplane nose on and draw a circel around it which just touches
the wingtips, you have a rough idea of the volume of air influenced
by the airplane as it flies along. A bipe or tripe will affect a
smaller area. It's morre compicated than that, of course, but it's a
good ROT

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

Yeah I read a report on a modern one years ago and apparently it's
yaw behaviour is very strange indeed. He said it was nearly
impossible to tell if you were skidding as the thing would just fly
along with the wings level and the ailerons neutral and going mare
sideways than straight ahead. You had to be on the rudder all the
time. Vigorous application of the rudder would initiate mad flat
turns of ridiculously small radius,whihc apparently made the thing a
very good gun platform. It must have been a tremedous advantage in
surprise terms alone.



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...

As Dudley said, I believe you're completely blind on landing, but all
the bipes of tha era had vis issues. There were some weird
experiments n that direction as well. The DH5 used negative stagger
and had the cockpit in front of the wings, for instance. The Sopwith
Dolphin had a weird aproach that's hard to describe.

Bertie



Yeah I read a report on a modern one years ago and apparently it's
yaw behaviour is very strange indeed. He said it was nearly
impossible to tell if you were skidding as the thing would just fly
along with the wings level and the ailerons neutral and going mare
sideways than straight ahead. You had to be on the rudder all the
time. Vigorous application of the rudder would initiate mad flat
turns of ridiculously small radius,whihc apparently made the thing a
very good gun platform. It must have been a tremedous advantage in
surprise terms alone.

Wouldn't be surprised if that's the reason pictures from the time -
and later on in movies like The Blue Max show DR.Is with streamers
trailing from the interplanes; most likely as big 'ole honkin' yaw
strings...

Good point on the early D.VII fuselage; was thinking about that
myself. IIRC, the prototype had the same small "comma shaped" rudder
stab as the DR.I; they added the forward strake/fin when they
lengthened the fuselage.

I can tell you now as soon as I make a cup of tea and grap my "Big Book
of German Airplanes."

OK, back. Yeah, the first prototype of the D VII had a comma rudder. it
was called the V11. It was pretty much just a mercedes engined D VI. The
next version had the fin but the fuselage lengthening took place
overnight at Aldershof during acceptance testing of the airplane. That
airplane already had a fin. It's climb was impressive, BTW. 5,000 metres
in 25 minutes.

Incidentally i spottd a DR1 fitted with a Siemens Shuckert 11 cyl geared
rotary. That must have been some rocket!


Bertie

On Feb 3, 8:06*am, Matt Whiting wrote:

Care to post your research source?

Matt-

Sure, here it is;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arcvl...eature=related
Since this guy is a pilot of a modern replica and, I believe, built
the one he's sitting in and standing next to, I took his comments
about the 3 wings as somewhat authoratative.
This is a good little ditty about the Triplane.

Ricky.