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  • Please see the most recent updates in the "Where did the .com name go?" thread. Posts number 16 and 17.

    Post 16 Update

    Post 17 Warning

Craig and Matt's Sopwith Camel Flight Demo

warchild said:
Welll, as i just discovered, everyone is right, even when they seem wrong.. The torque depends quite a bit on acceleration rate. so during takeoff when all nine cylinders are being used the plane will rotate to port ( left from the pilots seat ) quite strongly, but, when only three cylinders are being used and the engine rpm is winding down, the pull is to the right, allowing an amazingly fast right hand roll.
I will admit that this is the first rotary engine i've worked on, and quite a few things like this have taken me by surprise.. The more i work on this plane the more i come to think of it less as a plane and more of an entity, with an attitude. I bet in the right hands, this thing could take down an F-15. One hell of a little contraption.
As for the number of cylinders in use, I specified that because the camel did not have a throttle.instead it had a switch on the magneto that aloowed the pilot to select three six or all nine cylinders. Thus ( i think ) the reason why camels always sound like they are dieing or cutting out. it was the pilot switching between cylinder settings to achieve and maintain a specific speed..
Click to expand...

I notice the tight turns and to me it looked like it would be like white on rice in a dog fight. Was this WWI plane that agile? Looks awesome and I enjoyed the flick warchild.
 
Seeing the Sopwith in action is a real treat in itself. Times today I am sure leave very few, I would think that are truly air worthy. To also add, learning to fly them and get them back safely on the ground for another flight was just as much a challenge as the aerial dog fights they were involved in. That video was awesome.
 
yup, your right ole boy.. At most today, there are two, but the red white and blue one crashed into the side of a building while avoiding doing a ground loop. It isnt extensive damage but i dont know if it totaled the plane or not, so there may be only one.
just woke up from doing an all nighter on her.. Did some research too.. It seems like millions of others, i was incorrect.. Its not the torque that causes the plane to be a problem for newbies, its the landing gear. I and Paul were working with the wrong assumption. Now we've got to step back, tame it down in one way, and concentrate on adjusting contact points to duplicate the p[lane.. theres an amazing amount of modern day video available to pull from as well as some short hand calculus so theres a chance we can make this plane fly right after all..
 
Just curious, has anyone flown a Camel in ROF? How close is it to the real aircraft? I have the basic package and flying only the Spad and Fokker DVII.
 
I havent played ROF yet to find out, so i really cant say. I do know that for myself, it took a pdf file that broke down basic rotary engine effects on an airframe and the mathematical explanation of the camels landing gear before i understood i was going in the wrong direction..
fortunately, my mistakes were easy to correct :)..
this is a sad video, but, it shows very well all the good bad and ugly of the sopwith..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4nthF8_xEk
 
Nice videos ! I just shows how even an experienced pilot that has flown the Camel before can get into trouble very quickly....
 
Yes, with no trim at all, the pilot constantly had to have pressure on the stick and rudder to keep the plane on some sort of course. It was often said that a Camel was never flown in the direction it was pointed., and i'd believe it.. The camel was known to be marginally stable. just the smallest error could cause dramatic consequences. its Cg was low, but the wing design and the rotational forces forced the plane to more or less hang from its upper wing. Add to that a heavy tail that had a habit of pushing its way around turns and loops and you had a plane that was very much like an 1917 version of an f-4 phantom, with guns.. the landing gear was the deadliest though. i'll admit i'm still researching this aspect of the plane, but the landing gear had the potential of bouncing the aircraft into ground loops at the drop of a hat.. Over all, the Sopwith was a horrible plane to fly, but that became a badge to be worn proudly by the pilots that flew it. As Biggles once said, "If you can fly a Sopwith Camel, you can fly anything."
 
Ok, I tried flying the one in ROF. Very difficult aircraft to fly. I will stick to my Spad.
 
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