Timelines · Aviation · 2 of 9
The Red Baron’s triplane — three stacked wings and an engine that spun with the propeller.
1917·185 km/h·~300 km·1× Oberursel Ur.II 9-cylinder rotary, 110 hp·2.9 min
· THE STORY
The Fokker Dr.I is the little red triplane flown by Manfred von Richthofen, the “Red Baron”. Stacking three short wings gave it a ferocious ability to turn and climb in a dogfight, even though it was slower than most of its enemies. Its engine was one of aviation’s strangest ideas: the whole engine spun around with the propeller.
· WHY IT MATTERED
Three short wings pack a lot of lifting area into a tiny, light airframe. The Dr.I could out-turn and out-climb nearly everything it met — an early lesson that in air combat, manoeuvrability can matter more than straight-line speed.
· WHY IT MATTERED
Its designer Reinhold Platz used thick internal box spars so the wings needed almost none of the usual drag-producing bracing wires. Thick, self-supporting (cantilever) wings became the standard way every later aircraft was built.
· WHY IT MATTERED
The Oberursel rotary bolted the crankshaft to the airframe and spun the entire engine block with the propeller, which kept it cool without a radiator. But 100+ kg of whirling metal turns the aircraft into a gyroscope: the Dr.I snapped right eagerly and turned left reluctantly, and pilots who forgot died young.
· TRY IT
The whole engine rotates with the propeller. Set the rpm and watch what the pilot had to live with: the power that made the Dr.I climb like a lift, and the gyroscopic moment that yanked the nose down in right turns and up in left turns.
That gyroscopic moment rivals the elevator’s full authority: the Dr.I snapped into right turns (nose obligingly dropping) and laboured through left ones. Veterans used it — attacking in right-hand spirals new opponents couldn’t follow. M = Iω·Ω, nothing more.