fokker triplane

[nimrod.michaeli]

what made the fokker triplane during wwi dangerous flying?

 

[Stitch]

I'm not a big WWI fan (never could get into a/c that don't go much faster than my car), but it had a pretty insane lift-to-weight ratio (it should, with three wings), and a really stubby fuselage for it's size, so it wasn't very stable in the horizontal plane. A snap roll could easily turn into an unrecoverable spin, especially at low altitude, due to the lack of lateral surface area. It could climb like a banshee, and the good pilots learned to use that (like Manfred von Richtofen), but it was dangerous to friend and foe alike in a turning engagement.