Re: Red Baron Pt. 99

Neil Franklin <nei...@franklin.ch.remove> wrote:
: ewd...@ece.concordia.ca writes:
:> Ool <ulr...@t-online.de> wrote:
:> : <ewd...@ece.concordia.ca> wrote in message news:8tl111$491$7...@newsflash.concordia.ca...

:> : They did?  Well, I only sort of scanned the article about the German
:> : planes--maybe I misread the purpose of the synchronization device in
:> : that one, too.
:> Germans did indeed invent a synchro, which allowed them to shoot through
:> the propeller.

: Technically just an blocker that stopped the bold travelling forward
: at inappropriate time.

It synced the interruptor up with the blade... a synchro <G>


:>  Allies took alot longer to get one.
: Did the allies use synchro? My aviation history book claims that only
: the germans used it.


Yes, by the end of the war, the allies did have synchros, afair.


:> :  I can understand a propeller could be built to with-
:> : stand the odd bullet, but isn't there a non-negligible danger in that
:> : of stray ricochets backfiring at plane and pilot?
:>
:> So... either they had an observer shooting, say in a rear turret...

: All of them. At the begin of the war. Expensive in personnel and bad
: at aiming.

At the beginning of the war, they didn't even take up guns, so there were
no turrets yet. 

Hmm... I wonder if there's a equivalent to the Blue Max for shooting down
your own plane... using the turret to chew up the tail surfaces... 

or an Iron Flying Cross for the observer following some enemy plane and
shooting down his own side as the plane passes by other German planes

<G>




:> Some people had guns shooting through the propeller with armour plated
:> blades.
: French. Invented by Roland Garros. Only after his landing behind enemy
: lines did the germans find out about the idea. Anthony Fokker then
: came up with the better synchro idea.

:> Yes, there is a danger of being killed by your own bullet's ricochet.
: Actually the "armor" was an deflector, that knocked the bullet onto an
: side-/up-ways track, away from the plane.

But there is still a chance it will ricochet back, especially after
denting the deflector several times.

: ob-ascii scematic:
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That ruins aerodynamics... must have shrunk their envelope

:> However when life expectancy is 2 weeks, does it make that much of a
:> difference?

: That would be average, mainly dragged down by newbie pilots killed in
: first contact. If they survived 1 month they usually survived the
: entire war (at least that was so in WWII).

: BTW: The Red Baron was shot down on 21. April 1918 flying an Fokker
: DrI triplane, no 425/17.

Ofcourse he was really not himself anymore after he took that stray bullet
to the head.