Zerfass Posted November 1, 2015 Report Share Posted November 1, 2015 Man that thing is a beauty! Lee and J5_Hotlead 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Klaiber Posted November 1, 2015 Report Share Posted November 1, 2015 That's great! I saw a Fokker D.VIII replica at the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome this year. Beautiful aircraft. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zerfass Posted November 1, 2015 Author Report Share Posted November 1, 2015 That's great! I saw a Fokker D.VIII replica at the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome this year. Beautiful aircraft. Wonder if it was an Aerodrome kit..don't know if they make a D8. I want to get one of their Dr.I kits one day! Full scale of course. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Butzzell Posted November 1, 2015 Report Share Posted November 1, 2015 S! That looks like a Kermit Weeks plane. Most undoubtedly an exact replica to the smallest detail. There is a guy in NY that builds them, Brian somebody. I believe he built the one for Rhinebeck. Aerodrome airplanes used to offer a 5/8 scale D8. Not sure if Robert has it up to full scale yet. Have not checked in many years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lee Posted November 1, 2015 Report Share Posted November 1, 2015 That one's pretty nice with a rotary engine. Usually, modern replicas us a radial engine. The one we have at the Military Aviation Museum uses a radial. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zerfass Posted November 1, 2015 Author Report Share Posted November 1, 2015 S! That looks like a Kermit Weeks plane. Most undoubtedly an exact replica to the smallest detail. There is a guy in NY that builds them, Brian somebody. I believe he built the one for Rhinebeck. Aerodrome airplanes used to offer a 5/8 scale D8. Not sure if Robert has it up to full scale yet. Have not checked in many years. I think I saw a few at Fantasy Of Flight, everything is barley flown if at all. That one's pretty nice with a rotary engine. Usually, modern replicas us a radial engine. The one we have at the Military Aviation Museum uses a radial. Beautiful! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vonrd Posted November 2, 2015 Report Share Posted November 2, 2015 Yeah, that's Kermit's plane: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zerfass Posted November 2, 2015 Author Report Share Posted November 2, 2015 Yeah, that's Kermit's plane: Would've been pretty cool to be skipping around and see a low flying WWI aircraft sometime haha. Also; Kermit is supposed to reopen FoF in a few days I think.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vonrd Posted November 2, 2015 Report Share Posted November 2, 2015 Also; Kermit is supposed to reopen FoF in a few days I think.. Wow, great news! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IRFC Hawkeye Posted November 28, 2015 Report Share Posted November 28, 2015 That's no Oberusel or LeRhone, is it now? Gnome 160? Quite a bit suped up if that's the case..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J99*Hardy Posted December 1, 2015 Report Share Posted December 1, 2015 That's no Oberusel or LeRhone, is it now? Gnome 160? Quite a bit suped up if that's the case..... I would say you're right. I've heard an Oberursel UR.II in a plane on a Flight-Show here in Germany and it's a complete different sound. I've never heard a Gnome live, but this sound is quite the same as in RoF's N28 while the DR.I in game sounds like that Oberursel I've heard live. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IRFC Hawkeye Posted December 2, 2015 Report Share Posted December 2, 2015 I've heard that for some reason, probably because the end of WWI was not certain at the time the US entered the war, that France had a lot of the Gnome 160 HP engines as surplus, and shipped them to the US both before the war ended, and after, to be used in planes that the US may have planned to develop. Apparently more than a few have been found and returned to running condition, so really if a plane is to have a genuine rotary engine at all, the odds of it being a Gnome 160 are pretty high; often it's either that, or nothing. I saw a documentary recently in which different aspects of the Camel and Dr.1 were compared. The Dr.1 seemed to have a throttled rotary, but the Camel definitely had a Gnome 160 in it, and that was just one of others that I've seen that used that engine. At least in a Camel it could be seen as being similar to a Bentley equipped machine. Also I'd imagine that the owners of today's replicas would appreciate the extra horsepower available over the original engine, as an extra margin of safety (if not reliability). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ludwig Posted December 3, 2015 Report Share Posted December 3, 2015 About 2 months ago I spent and afternoon with Roger Freeman the owner and pilot of this Dr.I at the Pioneer Flight Museum at the old Kingsbury Aerodrome just outside San Antonio TX (where I live) and climbed in and tried this one on for size. Spent a pleasant couple of hours talking to him about flying it or one similar (he has built 3 including the one in the USAF museum at Wright Patterson) and at the end of it I was pretty satisfied that I didn't need to. Basically have to buy it and if I got it back down properly (which is the trick) then I could sell it back to him. I don't blame him one bit. He said absolutely NO WIND is required before he will take it up. PERIOD. Crosswind landings are just a disaster and even if you have a large field and can approach from directly into the wind, the slightest deviation in wind direction (shift) is going to be a real problem. Once the tail goes down you are a passenger. Period. Taking off was not that bad because you didn't have it on the ground that long and your escape was to get it in the air. Once there, he said that the airplane will continue to try and "swap ends" because of the torque which in this case was from the 80 hp LeRhone engine. He said that he ended up putting bungies on the rudder bar to help keep it straight because if you were flying it somewhere and you relaxed, it would start trying to bring the tail around in a flat turn. I asked him about that flat turn and how the pilots during the war described doing that and he said HAH! good luck NOT making a flat turn... that is what the plane wants to do, and if you let it... it will reverse course in a flat turn no problem. I described some of the behavior I have seen in RoF and he was not familiar with the game but said a strong NO to any of the traits seen in the game. It just doesn't do that. He said that turning into the torque was just not what you wanted to do, it would fight you and the turn would be resisted but turning with the torque it would come around in a hurry and was easy to control. He said you could make 3-4 turns with the torque in the time and space it would take you to make one against it, there was just no reason to fight it, you could make a 270° degree turn faster than a 90° against it. He felt that the stagger of the wings was insufficient and showed me where they (Fokker) had made the plane better by removing the middle wing, but it didn't have the integral strength without it... and the plane would have probably flown better/faster if they had just made the middle wing more of a spar than a wing. He pointed out the more extreme stagger of the Sopwith Tripane and said they go it right by spacing them further apart and prevented the pressure conflict between the wings that the Fokker exhibited. The trick is making a coordinated turn and then he pointed out that the ailerons were only on the top wing and that as such they were above the roll center (a LOT) and so when you banked the plane the ailerons were trying to roll the plane about an axis somewhere around or above your head... NOT the centerline of the fuselage, which when I looked up at the top wing made perfect sense. My first question to him was "does this thing fly as goofy as everyone tells me and he said "oh hell yes, it is a one of a kind" and went on to add some frills and dressings about the flight characteristics. He flies it, he enjoys it... some... but it is a risk every time you take it up. The only real damage they have incurred was when one of the ax handles broke and the wingtip dug in and basically cartwheeled it around, but the damage was minor and the lesson was learned. I asked about the D.VII sitting in the hangar.....he said Nah, you can take that up right now and turn it inside out, it's a beautiful well mannered plane and no wonder that the Allies were scared of it, they had every right to be. I had about 4 years in the CAF in Harlingen, TX when it was the CONFEDERATE Airforce, and spent an astronomical amount of money playing with old airplanes and I thought I had pretty much learned my lesson on that, but I wanted to get a little closer to these machines just out of curiosity. The only one that really winds my clock is the D.Va which they are building and it is really something. Just a gorgeous plane, and would be a real hoot to fly one, but once you have.... it drops off really fast as I have no desire to own another airplane but they are really enjoyable to see, but you don't fly them around to airshows (thank goodness) and you just don't go fly one of these and relax because of all the things that are involved. We spent more time honestly talking about the old days flying freight and did you know this guy and that airplane than we did these machines but I guess it is akin to an itch you just need to scratch to remind you to stay away from the poison ivy. IRFC Hawkeye 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zerfass Posted December 3, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 3, 2015 Here's a plane that I completely forgot about. Pober Jr. Ace. https://www.flickr.com/photos/qsyonroute/8726151109(Not my photo!) Its infact the one that my father bought a few years ago with a 160hp Madituck!, man is she nice! Adverse yaw is what makes her scary to fly, adverse yaw does not approve! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IRFC Hawkeye Posted December 3, 2015 Report Share Posted December 3, 2015 @ Ludwig, do you think having 27% less horsepower than standard (you said it was an 80 HP, right?) had an adverse effect on it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ludwig Posted December 4, 2015 Report Share Posted December 4, 2015 I am sure that it reduced some performance, but that is the only one I have seen with a rotary in it. I know there are others out there, but that is the only one I have personally seen, talked with the guy flying it etc. The drag is so enormous on these things that increase in power helps, but it is such a small % compared to cleaner designs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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