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The US Air Service

What do you want to fly?

  • SPAD S.XIII

    Votes: 12 46.2%

  • Nieuport 28

    Votes: 14 53.8%
  • Total voters
    26
  • Poll closed .
C

Cowboy1968

Charter Member
You are a pilot joining the American Expeditionary Force in Narch, 1918. You have been waiting for assignment when word comes that there is two squadrons needing a replacement pilot. One squadron is flying the SPAD XIII and the other is flying Nieuport 28s and some Nieuport 27s.

Remember what each aircraft can do. and remember what each aircraft can't do.
The
The SPAD XIII is one of the fastest mounts operating at the front. at full thoutle you are can run at around 135 mph. That big inline engine pulls the plane up in a climb at around 384 ft per minute. The bad news is the SPAD S.XIII is sluggish in a dog fight. it takes around 2,000 feet to perform a split S.
Remember that this airplane is a true Zoom and Boom aircraft.

The Nieuport 28 is as agile as the come. She is very easy on the stick and she does have some fairly good speed at 122 miles per hour and a climb It took about 11 minutes to climb to 9,000 feet. its advantage in a Split S over the SPAD was that it could perform it in less then 1,000 feet, but if remember if you took it to step of angle you could very well seperate the fabric from the wings.

Where do you want to be assigned?
 
Turn and burn.

I'd have to say that I'd go for the Nieuport. If you can turn inside the opposition then you can kill him. If he chooses to dive and run, find another target!!!!

Yours aggressively,

PomBee.:karate:
 
And no, I love WWI.......it was different era of flying.........more well dramatic.......combat at 100 mph has its time of fear, and well thrill. You see the aircraft you get to know every inch as you are fighting. If it was real (in the game) you would see the face and eyes........it was a more personal time.
 
I'll take a Corsair, ...

Just kiddin', ...

The SPAD S.XIII was strong, ...especially in a dive...

...Which meant you had a longer time to burn to death after bein' lit-up by a more maneuverable Fokker or Albatros...

...Nieuport please.

Thanks.
 
The only major problem with the Nieu.28 was it shed its skin like a snake in step angles. you had to be careful not to hit the critical angle and speed. it didn't happen seldom but several American pilots were lost in this fashion. Just something to think about.
 
Hi All,

I'd still rather have the Nieuport 28. Lt. James A. Meissner of 94th Aero Squadron survived this one.

Bub
 
When you see a Nieuport 28 you think American. The US Air Service took a plane that no one else wanted, because it was available. Both the French and British turned the aircraft down. The didn't like her lower speed over the SPAD S.XIII or the SE5a and they didn't like how she tended to part with her fabric.

The Americans on the other hand, realized you needed to put experienced pilots in seat, problem was they didn't have very many of those, so they spent months working the pilots up in other "training" planes like the Nieuport 27. They taught the pilorts what angle to avoid at the critical speeds.

The Americans took the Nieuport 28 and turned it into a success, but they still lost pilots to the separation of the fabric from the wings, but the Americans were doing real dog fighting and winning, while the British and French had become a bunch of zoomers and boomers.
 
I love this poll!

Okay... I am choosing the S.P.A.D. XIII, and not to take anything away from the Nieuport, but I believe that the S.P.A.D. was a better airplane. I say this with plenty of facts that back me up; I did a scholarship paper on the S.P.A.D. family of aircraft, and I did win the $200 prize! :woot:

Here's what I am looking at:

"The SPAD S.XIII was strong...especially in a dive...Which meant you had a longer time to burn to death after bein' lit-up by a more maneuverable Fokker or Albatros..."

True, the S.P.A.D. was a very strong plane. This was the main quality that the pilots loved. However, burning to death was actually not that much of a problem. The Hispano-Suiza engine was all internal combustion, and did not have a tendency to light up quickly. I am not saying that the S.P.A.D. never lit up, but according to records, more pilots died in a S.P.A.D. by trying to crash-land them than by burning in them... statistically speaking.

I would take speed and altitude over maneuverability. Sounds nuts... but in that day, getting above the enemy was I think more important than staying on his six. I realize that "booming and zooming" isn't what a "true" dogfight is classified as, but it's a technique that worked... and still does. One of my compadres said that pilots who flew the S.P.A.D. were chickens... which is simply not true!

Firepower is another thing that I'd like to look at; the S.P.A.D. carried numerous amounts of armament in its career. Most of the time you'd find .30 cals on the S.P.A.D., but the Model XII carried a Puteax 37 mm cannon as well as two guns. Two-seat S.P.A.D.s had four 30 cals. I can't remember what the Maxim guns on the German planes were... like a 35 cal??... but the Vickers guns were pretty reliable for the day. The Nieuport also carried the same guns, so there really isn't any comparison except to the positioning of the guns on the airframe. The S.P.A.D.'s guns are right in front of the pilot... easier to reach I think than with the Nieuport's, which were off to the right side of the plane.

The S.P.A.D. XIII does NOT win in the maneuverability department... the Nieuports and Sopwiths and R.A.F. planes always dominated in that department. The S.P.A.D. didn't have a very reliable engine at the start... as many as 66% of S.P.A.D. XIIIs were on the ground due to engine trouble on any given day. I would trade these things in for speed, quick interception, and as long as I have a faithful wingman... I am taking a S.P.A.D. into the air, everytime. :amen:

Here is a video of an original S.P.A.D. in the air in France: http://memorial.flight.free.fr/indexuk.html An feel free to look around the rest of the site, too! They also have an Se5a in the air, and a Fokker D.VII.

Thank you for the wonderful post! As you can tell, I DIG this stuff! BTW, anyone wanna do skins for Gary's S.P.A.D. XIII????????? I gots pictures for you to work off of! :wavey:
 
I'd have to go with the Nieuport just because of the sheer maneuverability of it all. She really doesn't give up that much in speed and besides the only enemy plane that can outrun it is the Fokker E.V/D.VIII, and that is only by what...two miles an hour or so?
As for the wing fabric issue just put a few extra nails in that wooden leading edge and you should be good to go. IIRC that was the main reason for the fabric separation; the leading edge would come loose in high-G maneuvering, like coming out of a steep dive. Besides if the unthinkable happens and the fabric does come off just remember that the ailerons are on the bottom wing and you will have a pretty good chance of coming home.
Did I mention it only takes a few hours to rebuild that rotary engine, compared to the several days for the SPAD's V-8?
 
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