Sopwith Camel Rotary Engine Rock 'n' Roll 

Flying 130 mph at 10,000 feet with no heat, oxygen, or parachute in machines that were much newer than home computers are now and had an engine that sounds like a modern grass mower. And somewhere out there, perhaps hiding in the sun, are the Fokkers with the red-themed paint scheme. The bravery of the WWI airmen, all of them, astounds me.

The entire engine spins around a fixed crank, crazy design.

There will never be another fighter like the Camel. Short coupled, stabilizer a little small, and with huge gyroscope up front. In a spin it could turn three times completely while losing only a hundred feet. It could almost do a 180 by thinking. If a enemy was on your tail you could almost reverse directly back at him. In the hands of an expert it was an untouchable fighter. In the hands of a beginner it was a death trap, it would stall and spin before you could think, though recovery was gentle if you could get past the shock of whirling like a top. The Gnome “single valve” was one of the best engine of the era and for its day very reliable. It did however have a few quirks, it pumped castor oil fumes into the cockpit at low speeds, which could make the pilot sick. This was because there was no exhaust manifold, exhaust just spewed out under the cowling to go wherever, and noxious stinking castor oil was the lubricant of choice. The engine had no throttle. Instead power was controlled by a series of switches called Manettes, that would hold open the valve on individual cylinders, cutting out compression. Later models used a switch that ground out the spark plugs on 3, 6, or all 9 cylinders, cutting power on and off by that much, but if careless pilot didn’t also reduce or cut off the fuel flow, or cycle through the cylinders, the spark plugs could oil up from the unburned fuel oil mix and become unable to spark until manually cleaned. The system was controlled by a button on the stick that would cut ignition on and off when pressed and released like a gun trigger. This method was called “blipping” by English pilots, presumably from the sound. I don’t know what term the French used to refer to the practice. The Gnome was also used in the Nueport 28, and (I kid you not) by the Germans built at the Obersel plant under license from the French. (🤦🏻‍♂️) When I was in elementary school I was obsessed with WW1 fighters and read everything there was to read about the camel, including interviews conducted in the 50’s of surviving Camel pilots (one of whom also flew spits.) I would give a lot to fly a Camel.

Finest rotary engine demo I have ever seen and I am 70 years old.

I can only imagine an airfield in France with a dozen of those rotaries starting up at the same time back in 1917. The sound.

The rate of development during the 20th century still amazes me. My father lived from before the first powered flight until after the first moon landing, and I started work in a large company that had no computers and retired from a company that had more computers than people.

Snoopy was right choosing a Sopwith Camel for his aircraft. Love the sound of them.

I've read that the effect of this torque in the air made the Sopwith one of the hardest planes to master but it also enabled pilots to make a shockingly sharp turn that could give the best of them a huge advantage against other pursuit planes.

What a time to live, incredible time, machinery, strife, life and death. Nothing like today. What an era.

World war 1 aviators and aircraft always amaze me. Those people were literally writing the books on flying and aerial combat as they fought a war.

i got to see a plane with a rotary engine when i was a kid around 1960 and it sputtered alot and almost cutting out as it ran and then flew. i don't remember if it was a sopwith camel or maybe some kind of nieuport. it left a lasting memory with me and i have a photo somewhere of myself standing next to it wearing a leather helmet with goggles and trying to look like eddie rickenbacker. i was about 10 years old and had built models of a lot of the world war one planes.

Most of today's young "Pilots" don't even know there were two types of "Radial" engines back then. "Static" radials we know about from their success in WW2, and these Rotating radials of WW1. Where the entire engine ROTATED with the prop!. This was done for two reasons. COOLING, to have plenty of air flowing over the cylinders. And for better distribution of the oil inside the engine. I've never flown a "Rotary". But, when I was first learning to fly as a kid back in the 60's, I meet plenty of old timers that had lots of experience with them!

I personally find it nice to just listen to the sound of a unique engine from time to time. Rotaries aren't that common, and it's nice to take in the sound of an era long since passed. But that's how I feel.

My grandfather was a pilot and flew during the last of ww1. He told me that the engines torque was so heavy that he could make 270 deg turns using the engine - trying to pull a 90 against the torque meant you were flying steady for too long to nòt get killed. As HE said - any farmer can fly.

Thank you very much for this video. To clarify it's not the torque of the produced by the engine causing the wings to rock. It's the reaction to the inertia of the engine's rotating mass when the RPM changes.

“Those magnificent men and their flying machines”

A blip switch cuts the ignition to some of the cylinders in the motor. Camels and their rotary engines did not have a throttle in the sense of controlling the fuel flow to the engine since the did not have carburetors, when a rotary engine is on; it is full throttle. The only way to control the power that the engine was outputting was to temporarily cut the ignition mechanism in some of the cylinders in the engine to assist with maneuvering. Hope that helped, fact check me if I am wrong.

Visited Wairapa in 2019 while they were practising - the Camel was like hearing nine BSA Gold Stars revving up in unison. Amazing sound.

These rotary engines gave the Sopwith, the DR1 Triplane and others, a really wicked right turn that could not be matched by in-line engine aircraft of the time!

Back when it took huge balls to be a pilot! Love it.

I think those Sopwith Camels were the best flyers during ww1. That bird is beautiful, sounds like the the correct engine in it.

An important piece of our past that deserves saving. Thanks for the huge job of keeping this aircraft airworthy.

I got to fly a Spearman in Utah many years ago. The pilot told me to watch what would happen if it went slower than 60 mph. It basically fell out of the sky!! Then he said it was mine....fly it. One the highlights of my life.

Whenever I play a flight sim or a combat flight sim they're always missing the raw sound of the engine and the difference in tone between on throttle, off throttle and I've never seen a flight sim that shows cool stuff like the exhausts firing when the engines slowing down. Little touches but they'd be cool, awesome video!

Well, when the crankshaft is attached to the airframe and the cylinders rotate around the stationary crankshaft, I'm surprised he didn't have the wingtips kissing the ground

Due to the massive amount of torque the rotary engine put out, the plane would actually climb when turning to the left, and descend when turning to the right. Pilots had to compensate for both when flying the Camel. Also the torque generated meant this plane struggled in left turns at full power. But if you wanted to turn right, it would whip itself around faster than a rattlesnake on crack

This is why many pilots called it un controllable. The entire plane will bank left easily but it’s very hard to bank right. I guess many pilots would cut back on throttle to turn right.

You can see where the maneuverability came from, and why the Sopwith camel was the highest scoring fighter of the first world war. However, they were bears to fly until you got use to them so i have read. Quite a high percentage of new pilots didn't get it right to their cost.

Many of the planes with either the Gnome or Oberusel rotary engines had oversized ailerons on one side to help counter the torque. The main method of engine speed control was to short out the magneto since these engines didn't have a real or controllable carburetor. Good pilots made the engine's torque work for them in combat, left turns being faster than right turns.

The rotary engine had so much torque to the right… it made turning left difficult. Pilot accounts say it was faster to turn 270 degrees right, instead of trying to get the plane to turn 90 degrees left.

It was a scary time. Not only for pilots of ww1 but also the ground troops on both sides. Hard to rap your mind around the death toll in that war. Especially in just one battle alone the death toll was astronomical. Rich man's war fought by poor young men.

Old Rhinebeck aerodrome has an Avro 504, Camel, and Fokker D 8 with rotary engines. Their DR 1 has a regular radial engine.

The reason that engine has so much precession (P factor) - instead of a crankshaft that turns, the whole cylinder bank rotates and the crankshaft is fixed to the airframe. In essence, the entire engine was rotating, so one hell of a gyroscope. I guess that was to keep it cool. It is cool, crazy but cool.

All of these comments, about whether or not this engine is a radial or rotary or a mix of both, have missed one basic fact. In a standard engine (radial included) the pistons, con rods etc. move up and down in the cylinder by changing direction of travel many times a second. This puts huge amounts of strain on things and limits maximum engine speed. In a rotary engine like the Gnome, the pistons move in and out of the cylinders because they are spinning on a different central axis than the cylinders.....because on one side the piston's central axis is closer to the cylinders than the other side it causes the in out motion without the pistons ever changing direction. This design puts far less strain on the pistons and con rods, but does put centrifugal force on the cylinders. It also makes the aircraft hard to handle as centrifugal force doesn't like changes in direction and will react in a 90 degree direction when change of direction is applied....ie the aircraft will climb when turned to the left and dive when turned to the right.

That sounds amazing. I love those old engines.

It's amazing that these planes got off the ground at all with the *balls of brass* the pilots sported!

I was of the impression that it wasn't so much the torque, but the placement of the engine. It made the Camel fly more like a gyroscope. It also made it unstable. These issues were corrected in the Sopwith Snipe.

My WWI favorite, also the SE5As and the SPADs.

All the old rotaries were like that. No throttle, just an interrupter switch. ON/OFF Pure beast!

Seems to be that New Zealand is the current place to see, hear smell all those rare WW1 planes. Thank you HAFUVideo for sharing.

The US had the little 'Jennys' at Call Field in Wichita Falls, Texas. I have been told more pilots died in training accidents than in combat. Until about 2019, there was a flying Jenny in W Falls. Now, it is on permanent static display at the municipal airport. I loved seeing it fly. The museum group auctioned off a ride in the final flight, fetching $35,000.

Aww the torque of the old Gnome Rotary.Heard it was hell to fly.

My great uncle was said to have flown these in the Great War. Sadly he passed before I ever heard of his experience.

I saw early footage of an original starting up during WW1, and it twisted and shook a lot more than that, the whole fusilage was moving like a skipping rope.

That engine was a wonder of its age, though sadly obsolete nowadays. Still beautiful to see it running.

The rotary right dive, left climb gave rise to the popular reason for the starboard islands of aircraft carriers.

That thing is timed perfectly also

I remember building a model of this plane when I was 8 or 9 years old. It came out well.

Whoever designed an engine where the cylinders rotate around a stationary crankshaft must have been crazy. Still it worked and helped to defeat Kaiser Wilhelm's Germany, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Rotary engines are, by default, radial, i.e. the cylinders radiate from the crankshaft. When rotaries were common, up to the 1920s, people spoke of rotaries and stationary radials to distinguish between the two types. The word 'stationary' has lapsed over time, but, with renewed interest in WW1-era aircraft, perhaps it should now be revived to avoid confusion, at least in discussion of vintage types.

_"Don't come a-knockin' when the Sopwith is a-rockin'."_ 😜😜😜

That’s one ANGRY radial, I love the torque twist to the air frame..

Biggles pulls his goggles down, Do you want to be a hero starts playing. Perfection.

In just a few short years after the Wright brothers first flight they built this plane and men FOUGHT with it!

That spudder at 0:55 sounded amazing! They must be one heck of a memorable flight!

What a beautiful flying machine!

Yes, this is the same Camel that lost its cowling during a display flight in 2001. Check out our other videos to find a clip of that incident.

I remember reading of these. Rigged so tail heavy it would"zoom and stall" if you weren't always pushing forward. And experienced boys would often control throttle via the mixture. So often the engine might choke and quit just after take off. By starting lean you knew which way to turn the mixture when she she started to miss. Everyone's nightmare, no altitude, no runway, no airspeed

fantastické co naší předkové dokazali vyrobit bez počítačů a mderních cnc soustruhů

Take off, man!

I heard somewhere that rotary engines didn't have throttles, the rpms were controlled by an on off switch to the ignition, and that they later were deemed impractical because they couldn't grow to big.

My old Oster Commercial Bar Mixer sounded just like that. It didn't fly, but you were flying after a couple pitchers of margaritas!

If I was around then and of age I would make every one of those engines a throttle butterfly like in a auto carburetor or throttle body. Flippin the ignition to fire on a couple cylinders for an idle sounds aggravating and can't be good on those engines. But they made it work. They flew great and did what they had to do.

This is very cool. I am enthralled by the actual tone of the engine-- sounds almost wimpy, except that knowing it's over twice the power of a Piper Cub sitting in a lightweight all-wood frame keeps things in perspective.

I can imagine the torque effect that rotating engine had on that very light air frame. It's little wonder they had so many takeoff and landing accidents.

you'd get airsick standing still, with what passes for "flight idle" lol! i like the camel better than the spad. jmo of course. thanks for uploading.

Reminds me of my 1982 Volvo 240DL

Imagine the tune, and then. "There ain't nothin' like a Gnome!" Definitely music!

The negative side of its flight characteristics were also it's positives.. It gave it great flight handling/turning performance. It apparently turned faster to the right (I think) than to the left! Tricky machine to master..

It'd not the torque, it's the weigh and imbalance of the engine. The Sopwith Camel's engine and prop turn while the crank is held stationary. Being hand/prop started, the weight of the engine gave it the inertia to start easier than just the weight of the propeller. It wasn't until later that they figured out it was easier to balance a prop than an entire engine. Besides the later inline engines wouldn't be able to be balanced to be used in the same manner.

Can you imagine the men who flew these probably never drove a car might not have ever gone farther then the next town suddenly are flying 130 mph at 10k feet high.

I can imagine, that is isn't easy, flying such an aircraft. The rotating mass is enormous, isn't it?

What a beauty....

I could only imagine the p factor on this beauty

I was just trying to simplify what the announcer said. But, now I know how blipping really works, thanks.

Which leads directly to aircraft carriers islands are always on the right side of the ship.

Everything which Captain W.E. Johns wrote about the Camel is correct. An obscure reference, but some of you will get it.

It was said that German pilots never liked engaging a Camel because they never knew what the plane might do............that was true even the Camels own pilot might not know exactly what the Camel would do next. They were completely unstable and you dared not take your hand off the stick even for a moment as it was tail heavy combined with the torque effect of the rotary engine made them deadly for novice pilots. But in the hands of an experienced pilot their flight stability issues could be used to make the Sopwith a highly maneuverable killing machine.

I can hear the announcer giving totally incorrect information at 2:25 saying “the switch allows him to run on 3,6 or 9 cylinders”. I'm amazed at just how often this myth has been retold. It is completely false. Listen to the video. The pilot starts the engine on the left magneto and “blips” (complete ignition cut out) numerous times. Then he switches to right magneto on the “1” position which simply skips 4 cylinders within the complete revolution cycle before firing the next cylinder. It does this in the complete rotation of the firing order of 1-3-5-7-9-2-4-6-8. It does NOT run on 3,6 or 9 cylinders. It runs on ALL cylinders but allows a cut out in the right magneto to #3 half power, #2 quarter or #1 which is 1/8th power within the complete cycle of 2 revolutions. #4 is full power without any ignition cutout on the right magneto. Left mag is "on / off" only.

Snoopy knew what was up!

Good hand brake!

An ancestor of mine invented that 9 cylinder rotary engine which was used in the WWI camels.

It is not the torque, it is the rotating mass!

Yeah, my 1973 BMW R75/5 did that too. :P

"an elegant weapon for a more civilized age"

I've heard that Camels had a maneuverability advantage turning to the right and a disadvantage turning to the left because of the effects of the engine torque.

Thanks for clearing this up for those who don't/won't/can't grasp it. :)

Imagine trying to fly that thing with the entire weight of the engine spinning like a gyroscope. No wonder more pilots died learning to fly it.

WOW, the torque on that engine....

When the plane's a rockin don't come a knockin!

Reverse torque effect. Certain makes of Motorcycles do the same. The ones in which the crankshaft runs for and aft not across the frame.

Thats just bad ass .

Just think, the first flight was in 1903. And 14 years later the camel was dogfighting over Europe.

Amazing plane! Would love to be able to go for a ride in one of these.

Nice camera work with that shot of the porta-potty.

Total rock n roll Early Days

The torque from the engine is amazing

That is a nice looking airplane

One wild air plane wow love it

Immortal...