Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/71

 Like a Wasp on the Wing

Is the New Albatross Destroyer in which the Germans have em- bodied all that the war has taught about fast fighting airplanes

By Carl Dienstbacli

��_» Underwood and Underwood

��THE war will be won by that power which launches into the air the greatest number of the fastest fighting airplanes. This seems to have been realized from the day when it dawned on the general staffs of Europe that artillery must be aim- ed by a man several thousand feet in the air, that the enemy must be prevented from similarly direct- ing his own fire, and that as a result, fight- ing machines must be resorted to in order to gain supremacy in the air. As a result, the warring nations have been tr>dng to outstrip one another in producing the fast- est and most formida- ble fighters. British, French, Germans have all commanded the air at different times, and the times usually coincided with the appearance of faster and more improved machines.

Whenever the newest type of hostile machine is captured, it is examined with microscopic minuteness. The curve of its u'ings, the spacing of its struts, the shape of its fins and tail, the material of which it is made, the proportioning of its different parts— everything is measured, tested and noted. It is not only studied; it is copied. This is no time for riding pet hobbies. The best that the enemy has must be not only imitated, but bettered.

It seems to be conceded in the British and French despatches that the new German Albatross destroyer known as "type D-III" is for the time being the fastest and most formidable fighting airplane on the Western front. In this re-

���Upside Down in Mid-Air

We used to marvel at the men who looped-the-loop in flying machines or slid down sideways or tail first, wonder- ing what was the good of it all. The wildest acrobatic feats performed at flying-machine meetings before the war are now part and parcel of every fighter's tactical equipment. He must put himself in a favorable position and if necessary must loop-the-loop to do so.

��markable piece of mechan- ism we see embodied in steel, wood and linen, all the lessons so bloodily driven home by two years of fighting in the air. The new Alba- tross is an amalgama- tion of the best fea- tures to be found in the original small Al- batross and the latest fast French Nieuport. Above all things, a fighting machine must be fast. A speed of one hundred and thir- ty miles an hour is about the minimum now. In addition to speed, the machine must have the maneu- vering power of a wasp; it must be able to dart up and down and in and out with the rapidity of an insect.

In the French Nieu- K w cr essential qualities of speed and maneuvering ability were more highly developed than in any other. The Nieuport is a biplane in which the lower wing is but half as wide as the upper. We look at the Albatross. Sure enough, its lower wang is one-half the width of the upper. In the fast Nieuport, the wings are "staggered"^ — that is, the lower wing lies not directly below the upper, but slightly to the rear, so that the front edge of the lower wing is just be- neath the rear edge of the upper one. Why is this done? Because the struts that tie the two wings together can be shortened. Shortened struts, in turn, mean less wind resistance. Look at the detail drawing of the Albatross that ac- companies this article. You see at once that the Albatross, too, has "staggered" wings and short struts.

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