Fall of the Red Baron by Leon Bennett

Author:Leon Bennett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Helion and Company
Published: 2012-02-18T16:00:00+00:00

This most difficult form of loop–the inverted type– was part of Pegoud’s stunt flying exhibitions in pre-war days. Source: Flight, September 27, 1913, p.1066.

Another form of loop – the outside loop – also widely associated with Pegoud was, if anything, assessed as worse. The resulting G loading on man and machine was severe and it was quite possible to sustain personal injury or aircraft damage, even in a well executed outside loop. In short, as Richthofen saw it, advocates were not only wrong, they were dangerous fools.

In addressing the aerobatics issue, he had moved a great distance from his original, open minded, beginner’s stance. The change reflected his own skill, plus lack of certain skills, together with the application of much pointed logic. All was finally tested against two major influences: Boelcke’s teachings, and those of his own combat experience.

Boelcke stood for simplicity and direct action. His 1916 dicta advocated no form of trickery. Instead, he offered only straightforward common sense. The result was a less than perfect fit to reality; in part, because so little was known of air combat at the time. A second limitation was the deliberate avoidance of many awkward aspects of combat. For example, it was all very well to advocate attack from the rear (see dicta # 5) but what of real life tactical situations where only frontal attack was possible? Was a frontal attack merely less than optimum, or truly wrong? If not a winning move, was it a losing move? On this sort of sticky issue, Boelcke had nothing to say. Unhappily, there were many such unmentioned matters.

Richthofen, an appreciative pupil of Boelcke, was determined to carry on his work. Loops were a poor fit to Boelcke’s philosophy of straightforward attack. Furthermore, loops required some loss of eye contact with the enemy: a violation of dicta #4. In short, looping was suspect and unlikely to gain Richthofen’s support, unless it demonstrated some saving merit. What of his own combat experience? True, combat against British two-seaters had produced no enthusiasm for aerobatics, but what about their livelier single-seaters? Wasn’t looping of some use in keeping up with single-seater maneuvers?

October 1916 saw the initial three Richthofen victories over single-seaters – by chance, all BE12’s. He was not impressed with their capabilities. His combat reports8 offered nothing about maneuvers – aerobatics were never an issue. Instead, he noted the considerable altitude at which combat occurred – as much as 10,000 feet – a height suppressing engine power and therefore acting to curtail aerobatics. As in his two-seater combat, the number of rounds fired was in the high hundreds (350, 400, 500) – numbers suggesting not duels, or a struggle for superior position followed by an execution – but a remote and leisurely outpouring of bullets, offered in the belief that given enough time some would strike home.

In effect, he treated the BE12 single-seater as though it was one more sluggish two-seater. If anything, he found the BE12 to be an easier opponent than the usual two-seater, for there was no rear gunner to deal with.

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