Author Topic: Sopwith Camel (WWI Fighter)  (Read 3671 times)

Luxan

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Sopwith Camel (WWI Fighter)
« on: 14 July 2020, 19:18:16 »
A little WWI fighter ported into BT stats. Too lazy to come up with an interesting overview, so copy pasta...

Overview (From Wikipedia):

The Sopwith Camel was a British First World War single-seat biplane fighter aircraft that was introduced on the Western Front in 1917. It was developed by the Sopwith Aviation Company as a successor to the Sopwith Pup and became one of the best known fighter aircraft of the Great War.

The Camel was powered by a single rotary engine and was armed with twin synchronized Vickers machine guns. Though difficult to handle, it was highly manoeuvrable in the hands of an experienced pilot, a vital attribute in the relatively low-speed, low-altitude dogfights of the era. In total, Camel pilots have been credited with downing 1,294 enemy aircraft, more than any other Allied fighter of the conflict. Towards the end of the First World War, the type also saw use as a ground-attack aircraft, partly because the capabilities of fighter aircraft on both sides advanced rapidly and left the Camel somewhat outclassed.

The main variant of the Camel was designated as the F.1. Other variants included the 2F.1 Ship's Camel, which operated from aircraft carriers; the Comic night fighter variant; and the T.F.1, a "trench fighter" armoured for attacks on heavily-defended ground targets. A two-seat variant served as a trainer. The last Camels were withdrawn from RAF service in January 1920.


Type: Sopwith Camel F.1
Chassis: Fixed Wing (Small)
Mass: 659 kg
Equipment Rating: C/F-X-X-X

Equipment                                       Mass
Chassis/Controls:                                83
Engine/Trans:                 ICE               192
    Safe Thrust:               5
    Max Thrust:                8
Structural Integrity:          5
Heat Sinks:                    0                  0
Fuel:                 520 (Petrochemical)        10
Armor Factor (BAR 2):          1                 25
                             Armor
                             Value
    Nose                       1
    Wings                     0/0
    Aft                        0

Weapons and Ammo                     Location   Mass
2 Machine Gun (Portable)               Nose      23
Ammo (Machine Gun (Portable)) 600/40   Body      24
Basic Fire Control                     Body       2

Crew: 1
Cargo: 225 kg

Notes: Features Prop Chassis and Controls modification and 1 seat (75 kg).

boilerman

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Re: Sopwith Camel (WWI Fighter)
« Reply #1 on: 18 July 2020, 23:40:07 »
Nice work. It's hard to convert real world to BT. You have created the first supersonic wooden airplane. I think.
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Giovanni Blasini

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Re: Sopwith Camel (WWI Fighter)
« Reply #2 on: 20 July 2020, 19:32:15 »
Nice work. It's hard to convert real world to BT. You have created the first supersonic wooden airplane. I think.

I believe you're correct, but I think it's more transonic than supersonic.  The Prop chassis mod means it goes out of control if it hits 8 velocity, and prevents it from exceeding 18,000 meters, which keeps it on the low-altitude mapsheet.

At that altitude, Mach 1 is 1062 kph in our atmosphere, or 294.2 m/s.  On the low-altitude map sheet, where hexes are 500 meters and the turns are still 10 seconds, Mach 1 works out to around 6 hexes/turn, and 8 hexes/turn works out to around Mach 1.35 where you go out of control, so figure 1260 kph, or Mach 1.19, is the fastest you could manage, which is still considered in the transonic range.  Barely.
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Luxan

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Re: Sopwith Camel (WWI Fighter)
« Reply #3 on: 20 July 2020, 20:04:20 »
Nice work. It's hard to convert real world to BT. You have created the first supersonic wooden airplane. I think.

Yeah, I know. The actual Sopwith Camel would break apart long before actually reaching those speeds. I was more aiming for an engine that was about the right mass. According to Wikipedia, the maximum speed of the actual Camel was 182 kph. (Not sure how trustworthy that is, but it's probably not too far off.) 182 kph is about 50.6 m/s, which is almost exactly Velocity 1 in low atmosphere. Which means the maximum thrust should be about 0.5 MP. So even a safe thrust of 1 is way to fast, lol.  :-\

I just kind of imagine that this plane moves across ground hexes rather than ground mapsheets. Which would put it's maximum velocity at 16 hexes per turn, which is about right.

Sabelkatten

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Re: Sopwith Camel (WWI Fighter)
« Reply #4 on: 21 July 2020, 04:42:05 »
Arguably WWI biplanes should be built as VTOLs with a "stall speed" quirk (and probably a second quirk to limit them to turning one hexside per hex moved). That would be closer to real-world performance...

truetanker

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Re: Sopwith Camel (WWI Fighter)
« Reply #5 on: 01 December 2020, 01:08:52 »
Now looks like you need to make a Cuckoo for it and it's friends to protect it on it's bombing run!

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ckosacranoid

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Re: Sopwith Camel (WWI Fighter)
« Reply #6 on: 03 December 2020, 01:37:37 »
So do we theses stats for the famous flying dog house.

BATTLEMASTER

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Re: Sopwith Camel (WWI Fighter)
« Reply #7 on: 04 December 2020, 14:42:04 »
So do we theses stats for the famous flying dog house.

Funny way of spelling the name of the Leopard dropship  :D

I've approximated RL fighter jets using their straight line acceleration (in Gs) to size their engines.  If we were to do the same with this Camel, it would probably be less than 1.
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