The only remaining (flying) Sopwith Camel in Europe came to Stow Maries, and here is some video footage we took at the momentous event. Includes BBC coverage used with permission.
@lumpy3553 You're right about the tendencies of that aircraft to either climb or dive in a turn since a gyro tends to resist changes in direction and would produce the effect you mentioned. Torque is present even when flying straight and level and I suppose was compensated for in the Camel by applying some measure of rudder to keep it on course. Thanks for the discussion which caused me to think of things I haven 't considered in many years. Thought provoking.
Wow! Amazing sight! I'd love to visit some airshows, but I don't get to travel much. It would be an amazing experience to see aircraft both from the modern world along with those straight out of a history book.
Actually it WASN'T centrifugal (note the correct spelling) that caused the tricky flight characteristics, it was the tremendous TORQUE caused by all that mass spinning around. I've been a commercial pilot for 24 years and in the ag spraying business. Even the propeller creates torque that must be corrected by rudder use on take off. I fly Grumman Ag Cats with the P & W R-985, 450 hp. engines and I'm quite accustomed to the torque steer on take off.
Ok, but think about the costs: Those engines are rare and expensive. To scratch build one is also not cheap. Then you need a good enough pilot to fly it without overturning it and pay him for the risk, and by doing this you also need to go through a crap load of paper-work and insurance bull because now the airplane is not as safe. Not everyone who owns these planes have deep pockets, so there are plenty of considerations. I'm just glad that there is at least one flying :)
agreed, if you compare it to other replicas (videos on youtube) equipped with the Authentic Rotary engine.. it does in fact sound like radial in this video. The airframe by be authentic but me thinks its using a Radial engine.
The fact that so many pilots were killed learning to fly the Camel might say more about the lack of pilot training in the era than the aircraft they used. There were no two-seat Camels, so pilots soloed the aircraft on their first flight. In addition, in many cases the pilot recruits were fresh transfers from the trenches and had no flight experience at all. Of course, modern pilots used to flying Cessnas might not be prepared to handle the Camel's not-so-forgiving flight characteristics.
There were no "fresh transfers from the trenches." They went through some training at Joyce Green or other facilities in England. It's true that there were no two-seater Camels, Pups or Triplanes, so the instructor told you what to expect, and sent you up when you were ready for the type. (There was a two-seater Pup, called the Dove, but it was a postwar civilian plane).
Hmmmm...interestingly I saw this very aircraft in a hanger in Buckinghamshire in the U.K. It is indeed a radial, not a rotary and if I am not mistaken is only about ten years old. RU-vid the Stella Artois advert...it's that one i think. I spoke to the owner too. Nice...but not original. As for the rotting Camel refered to down below somewhere your man has mistaken another film prop. It's in Australia outside a military museum. It is privately owned and the owner won't fix it up!
Actually, there is only one original Sopwith Camel that has been restored to flying condition in Califonia, but there are several replicas such as this one. I love to see replicas being made and flown. Save the originals in museums especially for future generations and Wingnut Wing's Model Company owned by Peter Jackson for accurate model kits.
@lumpy3553 Not to belabor the subject but If I could take you for a ride and demonstrate "slow flight" you could see the effects of P factor and torque at Vmc, the slowest speed at which you have control of the aircraft...it requires massive right rudder inputs to control the effects of a counterclockwise rotating propeller at very slow airspeed, around 60 mph in a Cessna 172. Student pilots are required to hold a steady heading, say 090 degrees, which is east, when demonstrating slow flight.
@lumpy3553 Something interesting that you might want to investigate is an effect called P factor......it involves the phenomenon of asymmetric thrust when a wing and propeller is at a high angle of attack such as one encounters when climbing or descending. I struggled to understand this when I was a student pilot because I knew that the FAA designee or check pilot might ask me about this during the oral part of the exam. Fortunately for me he didn't. I had dodged a bullet. whew.
@lumpy3553 I don't want to seem contentious but yes, torque is in play. Can't you visualize how that mass out front would try to "twist" the fuselage of the airplane opposite the direction of the engines rotation? Again I'm not trying to be a know-it-all because I certainly don't know everything about aviation. I'm quite familiar with gyroscopic forces and the precession of gyro intruments and the need to correct them from time to time.
that torgue is what made it a great fighter plane. The Sopwith 1-1/2 Strutter had very little torque and flew straight and docile, and was much harder to twist around in the sky. Camel, Pup and Sopwith Triplane all had similar torque effect and were extremely maneuverable.
They have plenty of authentic planes from the era with real rotary engines flying around, and few accidents reported. You're just as likely to crash in a sopwith camel with a radial engine as you are with a rotary engine. Both have a rotating mass spinning one way, so you'll still have the gyroscopic forces from the engine. Without trim tabs, the effect is the same, just not as pronounced. If rotaries were so expensive to make, you wouldn't see people building new rotaries or fixing old ones.
I've seen a few reproduction WW1 fighters and they all used radial engines instead of rotaries. I suspect that original rotary engines are scarce. As an example the radial engine design was used in many very good WW2 aircraft......the B-17, the P-47, the CH-47 and others including an aircraft that I've flown a good bit, the Stearman biplane trainer made by Boeing.
The only flyable Sopwith Camel in the WORLD is B6291 owned by the Javier Arango Collection in Paso Robles California. The other five non-flying Camels are in various Museums. This replica looks nothing like B6291.
Sopwith Camel had a 130HP Clerget 9b rotary piston engine and only weighed 1,450LBS loaded, had a climb rate of 1,000FPM, service sealing of 20,000FT, top speed of 115MPH, and could turn on a dime. It had almost every advantage agents the Albatros D.III particularly in agility, plenty of power and would just about climb itself, no trouble flying at all. The part that made the Camel hard to fly was its Gyroscopic effect caused by the rotating mass of the engine, something that took a experience pilot to compensate for, in addition it was a very unstable aircraft and very responsive which wasn't necessarily a good combination with the gyro, and could be throttled by adjusting air fuel mixture but seldom done because it was a tedious process so more often than not the pilot used the blip switch to control engine speed and kept the air fuel mixture set for max power. sadly most young men thrown into the cockpit and into combat with one hardly had the experience to take it off the ground let alone go into a dogfight with it, more camels were lost to takeoffs and landings than shot down. This model appears to be fitted with a Radial engine, there is a flying replica built in New Zealand powered by a 160HP Gnome, some were equipped with those engines, but most common was the 130HP Clerget 9B and the best was the 150HP Bentley BR1
As with Justin S., I was going to say that the Camel had lots of power, comparatively. The Pup, which was lighter, had an 80 hp rotary engine. That airplane was beloved of pilots more than the Camel, which killed novice pilots, as 13aceofspades13, says, above.
@cobrachoppergirl Hard to believe someone with your moniker would even know a Camel to lay eyes on it. Do the vintage aircraft fraternity a huge service and divulge the location of what would surely be a major find. If it is indeed a real Camel. Stranger things have happened, I must admit.
Just a few years ago, there were 6 flying B-24s, now there is only one left. Instead of trying to save that one, they are still flying it. I consider that stupidity. When that crashes from metal fatigue and stress, there will be none left for future generations to see. Experienced pilots during WW1, who only flew Rotary Engine planes, crashed. I would not be excited to see someone flying the last of it's kind, I would be worried. All these owners want to do is make money at air shows.
At the Shuttleworth Collection in England, they fly all of their planes. Many of them need to have repairs, but these machines had things repaired and replaced when they were flying. You replace fatigued metal, cracked wood, etc on a regular basis. Still, I agree that we should keep a couple of the time in original condition so we know exactly what they were at the time. But birds are made to fly.
This type of rotary engine is also a radial. In fact, the very first radials were designed to rotate, as integral parts of early motorcycle wheels before airplanes ever flew. The "motorwheel" concept. The term "radial" refers to the way in which the cylinders are mounted "radially" around the crankcase. So, what we really have is "fixed radial" and "rotary radial." Commonly, it is understood that an early aircraft rotary engine is a spinning radial, but it is incorrect to say that a rotary engine is not a radial. All engines with cylinders mounted this way are radials.
Yesh....just checked this. It's Bianchi aviation's replica... Scarab engined RADIAL. Ok...can we all agree it's a replica and the journalist is wrong...not original...not correct engine. Ok?
+Stella Wong And several replicas, one or two of which are technically rebuilds, if you stretch the definition as far as it was stretched for those FW-190's
I do not appreciate being called names. I am an ace. I flew P-51s and P-80s. I've seen crashes, most from pilot error, because they are not used to the planes they are flying. How do you gain experience when there is only one of a kind? There are no more Fokker Dr-1s or Nieuport 17s left, neither flyable nor non-flyable. If I'm an idiot and I am wrong, that Camel will be around for future generations. If I am right, it will crash in just a couple years. I truly do hope I am an idiot and wrong.
@ChicaWolverina where you talking about? this is an original ww1 plane.. not reproduction.. and what is wrong with flyign a reproduction? you know how happy i could be if i actually have the option to evver fly 1? go troll somehwere else >:C
