Sopwith Pup vs. S.E.5

[Soundbreaker Welch?]

Which was better? Which was more capable of taking on the Fokker VII?

[timshatz]

Faster, higher flying. Way more horsepower. Two guns. Inline engine. Relatively easy to fly. My vote is definitely for the SE5a.

Like the Pup. Heard it was easy to fly. But would rather fly the 5 against somebody trying to kill me. At least I could run away if I had to. Didn't really have that option with the Pup.

[Glider]

Didn't you mean to compare the SE5a to the Camel? The Pup was a much earlier machine.

[Soundbreaker Welch?]

I have heard the Pup was a better dogfighter than even the Camel. It also didn't have the vicious stall the Camel had, which killed many novice pilots.

Here is a qoute from the Manfred von Richthofen on the Sopwith Pup.

"We saw at once that the enemy airplane was superior to ours." Manfred von Richthofen, after encountering the Sopwith Pup in combat.

I assume this was before the Fokker VII had entered on the scene, but this quote still shows the qualites of the Pup quite well if even the Red Baron was impressed with it.

[BombTaxi]

The two machines aren't comparable though - it's like comparing the P-51D to the P-36 and asking which is better for fighting Ta152s...

[Soundbreaker Welch?]

I disagree, the P-36 was more than a 150 mph slower than than the Ta-152.

The Sopwith Pup on the other hand, was only 5 miles slower than the Fokker D. VII.

The Fokker D. VII was a great plane, but it wasn't unbeatable, just like the Ta-152.

A better comparision to the Ta-152 would be the Spitfire IX, a excellent dogfighter, much slower than the Ta-152, but probably still able to hold it's own against the German fighter.

[Glider]

In that case it has to be the SE5a by a country mile. But its like comparing an Me109e against a Spit XIV, or a Spit Ia against a 109K. One is a very good fighter for its period, the other a very good fighter for a much later period of the war.

Both these aircraft were easy to fly, one had agility the other twice the firepower, was about 35% faster, dived even faster, climbed better had about 150% more power and could take more damage. No contest.

[Soundbreaker Welch?]

I agree in terms of speed the S.E.5a was better than the Pup.

In that case it was superior to the Fokker D. VII as well.

Fokker D. VII: 116mph

S.E.5a: 138 mph

In terms of speed, the Fokker D. VII was at a disadvantage.

[Milos Sijacki]

I choose S.E.-5a because of those characteristics that Timshatz mentioned and I would only repeat.

Sopwith Pup was also a good airplane was armed with only one machine gun and was slower, but it was an earlier model of the war.

[Waynos]

The Pup was easier to fly than the Camel but the Camel was by far a better fighter. Half-decent pilots also used the engine torque of the BR 2 to flick the Camel into a roll and turn that nothing else could follow (strictly one way however!)

The SE 5a easily beats the Pup but its a much closer run thing against the Camel, which also had its two guns concentrated on the nose cowling and thus fireable at the same time without resorting to a jury rigged trigger pull for the Lewis on the SE's upper wing..

[timshatz]

Never liked that Lewis on the top wing. Always wondered how much drag that put on the airplane. Thought it wouldn't take much to drop another Vikers into the fuselage or even rig the Lewis down there. Make the airplane just a little bit cleaner.

[Glider]

I know that it wasn't possible to put a second gun in the fuselage due to the way the engine was installed. Re the top gun I certainly agree about the drag but some RNAS Camels had a similar top gun. This was because they had to defend the fleet against airships and the preferred method of attack was to fly below them and use the top gun against the belly of the airships.

In fact some Camels were used for home defence with two guns angled upwards, maybe the first Schrage Musik?

[BombTaxi]

Albert Ball used wing-mounted Lewis guns to great effect, pulling the gun all the way back down the mounting rail until it was pointing almost straight up, then raking the exposed and undefended belly of his victim. Drag from the weapon doesn't seem to have had a huge negative effect on aircraft performance, from what I have read...

[timshatz]

I knew about Albert Ball doing that trick with the upward shooting. But he was a one of a kind. Anybody who can fly a rotary engined airplane (torquey as all hell) and hang underneath an enemy, raking them with machine gun fire, is a true wonder. He wasn't much on tactics either. Just flew in to the middle of them and fought it out.

Ball was truely amazing.

I remember reading that McCudden (or somebody of his caliber) had put the spinner of a Roland on the front of his aircraft and claimed the speed went up by 5 or 10Mph. He was always tinkering with his airplane.

Thanks for the info on the engine Glider. Always wondered about that. Though the Lewis was a leftover from the generation before. Agree the 5 was a draggy airplane, but figured every little bit helped.

It also struck me as a good candidate for a single winged fighter. Strengthen the bottom wing, expand the area of the wing at the same time. Figure out a way to retract the gear (like they do on Mooney aircraft or possible the Wildcat, some crank operation) and it seems to have the qualifications of a pretty fast single wing bird. Couldn't really do that with a lot of WW1 aicraft but maybe you could with the Se5A.

[BombTaxi]

The SE5a actually had an inline powerplant (Hispano-Suiza 8b or Wolseley Viper). I hadn't heard the story about McCudden before but it wouldn't surprise me - he was a mechanic for some time before becoming an observer and than a pilot, and was much better acquainted with his machine than most pilots. I would agree that Ball was no tactician - but as a gifted and highly aggressive amateur, he was beyond compare.

Not sure the SE5a (or any other WWI bird) was structurally capable of having retractable gear, or had the power to carry such a weighty mechanism. Would be interesting to see how the SE5a would work as a monoplane, I think it would need a dramatically improved powerplant to maintain it's performance though...