Whats your favorite aircraft from WWI??

[tomo pauk]

Great stuff, delcyros.

 

[Readie]

For me the question of 'my favourite' is two fold.
1) Which plane I like.
2) which plane , if I had to fly into war would I prefer to be in....

1) it impossible to answer as I admire them all for different reasons.
2) SE5a. Not the prettiest I grant you but,a robust fighter and I'll settle for that.
Cheers
John

 

[nuuumannn]

Although I've posted a picture of my personal favourite, the Sopwith T.1 Torpedoplane, I'm reading a book about the recreation of an airworthy F.E.2b here in New Zealand - there are actually two now flying. It's an unsung type that had a better war and a bigger following at the time than history would have us believe. Despite being obsolete from midway through the war, the 'Fee' saw service as a night bomber right until the very end of the war. Only components of an original example survives; incorporated into the RAF Museum's example.

Building the FE.2b | The Vintage Aviator

Flying the FE.2b | The Vintage Aviator

 

[nuuumannn]

John, can't fault you on your choice of S.E.5a - a grand machine that looks like a fighter should.

Prem985, all we need now is for The Vintage Aviator to build a full scale airworthy Gotha G IV!

 

[zoomar]

I am particularly fond of the Pfalz D-III. Certainly not the best German fighter of the war, but very rugged and in service far longer than many more famous types. Beautiful and sleek. I also appreciate the Fokker D-VII and Camel. But my favorite WW1 aircraft is not an airplane at all. It is the zeppelin rigid airship.

 

[Avionette]

For me I have always liked the Spads. Recently Ive really started to like the Spad XII. Its sort of an oddity. It has a single .303 Vickers machine gun firing through the propeller plus a single 37mm Puteaux cannon firing through the propeller shaft. The Puteaux was a tank cannon shortened and adapted to the Spad. It was a single shot gun that had to be hand loaded. Since the breach of the cannon was sitting between the pilots legs its obvious that a regular "stick" control couldnt be used. So the Spad XII used Deperdussin controls. These were similar in layout to the controls used on the P-38 or most bombers where a wheel controls the ailerons and moving the yoke controls the elevator. It had a Hispano-Suiza 8Cb, liquid cooled V8 engine producing 220 hp driving the propeller through a reduction gear. This had an advantage to other designs using rotary engines in that the pilot didn't have to deal with the large gyroscopic forces resulting from spinning the entire engine.

Other favorites of mine however are the Sopwith Camel and Pup for their rotaries! The rotary is unique and almost unknown and unheard of these days. Noone ever imagines that you could solidly attach the propeller to the engine and then spin the engine and prop together! This allowed for some wild handling and quick turns... in one direction however. The rotaries of the time had a high power to weight ratio plus were very intriguing (at least to me) with their poppet valves located in the piston, no throttle to speak of (using a blip switch) plus all the castor oil!! Pretty cool stuff!!

I like all airckrafts used during ww1, but not prototype! ....example Albatros triplane etc.

 

[Readie]

I like all airckrafts used during ww1, but not prototype! ....example Albatros triplane etc.

They all have something to offer that's true.
Brave boys flying those planes !!

 

[Marcel]

One of those potential very good aircraft, now largely forgotten:

BAT fk.23 Bantam.
Designed by Dutch designer Koolhoven it was meant to be the British answer to that other Dutch model, Fokker D.VII.
Interesting because it was one on the first aircrafts with a fixed radial engine. Unfortunately too late to do anything, just a few reached France.

 

[Readie]

Good post Marcel. That is an interesting plane.

 

[swampyankee]

Avro 504. It may not have been in any significant combat, but it did train combat pilots until the mid-1930s and seems to have had minor use in WW2. Name one other aircraft that served in both WW1 and WW2.

 

[beitou]

The DH2, broke the Fokker scurge and looked like an angry bee, served well past its use by date but was still a useful machine. Wouldn't want to nose it over on landing though.

 

[buffnut453]

Sopwith Pup - simply beautiful. Oh, and the RE8 (aka "Harry Tate") for pure, bluddy-minded ugliness!

 

[silence]

Albatros D series - love that torpedo shape, low upper wing, and plywood skin.

 

[fastmongrel]

One of those potential very good aircraft, now largely forgotten:

BAT fk.23 Bantam.
Designed by Dutch designer Koolhoven it was meant to be the British answer to that other Dutch model, Fokker D.VII.
Interesting because it was one on the first aircrafts with a fixed radial engine. Unfortunately too late to do anything, just a few reached France.

Unfortunately the Bat Bantam was one of a large number of British planes cursed with an ABC engine. Tens of thousands of ABC engines were ordered in 1918 but they were all universally poor and the RAF would have been in deep trouble in 1919-1920 if the war had carried on. ABC Dragonfly - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Milosh]

A plug for Fanair's link

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/world-war-i/war-air-39266.html

Worth the read.

 

[Lucky13]

Have a few!

 

[nuuumannn]

Avro 504. It may not have been in any significant combat

To add to the many tasks carried out by this great aeroplane, Avro 504s carried out combat operations as bombers and fighters. In fact Avro 504s carried out one of the very first strategic bombing raids of the Great War and in history when on 21 November four RNAS examples attacked the Zeppelin factory hangars at Friedrichshafen. Flying from Southern France, the aircraft managed to do superficial damage only and one Avro was shot down and its crew captured.

The Avro 504C was a specific single-seat variant modified especially for shooting down airships. These carried out many patrols in search of Zeppelins over Britain, but none managed to cause any damage to any. The 'Zeppelin Chaser's problem was that it did not have a very high speed or climb rate, nor could it reach the altitudes the German airships often flew at. The Avro 504B two-seater was also used for anti Zeppelin operations, being scrambled (!) during a number of early German raids against Britain in 1915 and it too, suffered the same issues as all the early British interceptors.

A type that is often maligned, but carried out an enormous variety of duties its designer (Geoffrey de Havilland) could not have foreseen during the war, was the B.E.2 family. Light bomber, photo reconnaissance, single and two seat scout, specialised night fighter/Zeppelin interceptor, artillery spotting, crew trainer, fleet shadower/maritime reconnaissance, non-rigid airship control car to name a few. B.E.2s bear the distinction of shooting down more airships than any other type of aeroplane.

 

[Glider]

Bristol M1, an aircraft way ahead of its time and a monument to the poor leadership that existed in the UK at the time

 

[prem895]

Bristol M1, an aircraft way ahead of its time and a monument to the poor leadership that existed in the UK at the time

Just goggled it, nice looking mount,and not a bad performer

 

[Akuma]

Hansa-Brandenburg W.33