The Ten Greatest Biplane Fighters
Image credit: http://www.timetoast.com
The two periods in which biplane fighters saw combat in significant numbers oddly coincided with the beginning and very end of the fighting biplane‘s development with nearly twenty years of comparative peace in between. Thus any assessment of the ‘greatest’ biplane fighters naturally looks at these bookends of the biplane story. Many fine aircraft appeared, flew for a few years in the squadrons, and were quietly withdrawn without ever firing a shot in anger. This cursory, and totally arbitrary, list of the greatest looks only at those ‘lucky’ enough to have seen operational combat service and naturally follows the odd pattern of the biplane‘s most significant periods of service, 1914-18 and 1936-41, before the monoplane showed two fingers to two wings for good. Please also grant us the cognitive dissonance required to use terms like ‘scorer’, we do not intend to celebrate war or to trivialise the lives lost in these dogfights.
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The Fokker Eindecker, which beat the DH.2 into service, was little more than a lash-up, a machine gun bolted to an existing (inadequate) airframe and liable to fall apart if the gun was fired. The DH.2 quickly gained ascendancy over the German monoplane and remained in frontline service into 1917, a remarkable career given its pioneering quality. The opening shots in the long war between monoplane and biplane had been fired and the biplane was the initial victor.
Eventually surpassed by aircraft of greater power and strength, the Nieuport lingered in frontline British service into early 1918 and even then some of the more influential pilots retained one for personal use, notably Albert Ball and Charles Nungesser. Virtually all Allied aces scored at least some of their kills on the type.
However, these terrifying handling qualities conferred upon the Camel exceptional manoeuvrability, it may well have been the most manoeuvrable fighter of all time, and in a turning fight the Camel was untouchable. The statistics bear this out, Camels accounted for 1294 victories, more than any other fighter type of the war. Its rival the SE5a was in virtually every respect a better aircraft but the Camel seemed to capture the wider imagination, possibly due to Biggles and of course the type’s most famous pilot, Snoopy.
A massive production programme meant that despite entering service as late as May 1918, some 3300 had been built by the end of hostilities in November. Famously singled out to be handed over to the Allies as a condition of the armistice terms the D.VII re-entered production in the Netherlands and ultimately served in the air arms of 19 nations, in some cases well into the 1930s.
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From the cocaine, blood and flying scarves of World War One dogfighting to the dark arts of modern air combat, here is an enthralling ode to these brutally exciting killing machines.
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6. FIAT CR.32 Freccia
Meanwhile, over Spain, Fiat flew the flag for Fascism against the Communist upstart I-15, its one major advantage over the Soviet aircraft being its heavier armament. Spain would prove to be its finest hour, it was capable of destroying the Tupolev SB-2 bombers that were thought uninterceptable due to their speed – indeed Spain saw the unusual situation that both sides possessed monoplane bombers that were faster than their respectivebiplane fighters, a situation that hastened their replacement by speedier monoplanes.
4. Kawasaki Ki-10
3. Gloster Gladiator
Curiously the Gladiator pops up in an unusual number of unequal conflicts far from its home where it was forced to operate (invariably heroically and to great propaganda value) in the face of numeric and technological superiority – thus conveniently mirroring the general experience of the biplane fighter in World War II. Flying for the Chinese against the Japanese, with the Finns against the Soviets, the Belgians against the Luftwaffe and, most famously, with the RAF against the Italians over Malta the Gladiator stoically defied the odds. More prosaically, when operated in numbers against a similarly equipped enemy it performed excellently and a similar situation to the CR.32/I-15 situation in Spain developed over Africa, where it clashed regularly with the Fiat CR.42, which, though slightly faster, did not handle as well as the Gloster. Despite being the RAF’s last biplane fighter it was also that service’s first fighter to sport an enclosed cockpit, there are not many aircraft that were simultaneously in the vanguard of development whilst totally obsolete.
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In that list, one plane and pilot are missing:
SPAD XIII, the best allies fighter plane.
René Fonck, the best allies fighter pilot, with 75 kills.
Based on fame, I think I would have to agree, the Spad XIII and the SE5a should have been included on the list instead of some of those from the 1930s and 40s. This is especually Ironic because the Spad, though a biplane essentially wrote the recipe of what would constitute a good fighter in WWII… Fast, dove well, could zoom climb, but not that good of a turner.
What’s the story on the lead photo? Apparently from a film?
Excellent blog, by the way.
The Gladiator is also one of very few biplane which have wing guns 🙂
The I-153 photo is funny – seems “Chaika” prefer grass strip rather than paved runway.
The D VII helped make Hermann Goering a fighter ace.
What no Hawker Fury?
Interesting list. While I would have put the SE.5 in ahead of the Camel, I was surprised that the Spad S.VII didn’t make the list.
To those who would put the SE5A ahead of the camel, there is this; The Camel was used to shoot down nearly 1300 enemy a/c, more than any other ‘Allied’ fighter. But, on the flip side, it may well have killed more of it’s pilots than any other fighter.
In comparison, the SE5A was a much more stable a/c and not beset with the Camel’s nasty rotary engine’s torque effect.* In general, it was more forgiving of lesser errors. (according to one on-line source) “As the fastest British aircraft of its time, it was regarded by many as the best British fighter of World War 1, the Royal Aircraft Factory SE5a was less nimble than its front-line contemporary, the Sopwith Camel, but could out-dive and out-climb its `rival’, sustain more combat damage and yet remain intact despite performing high-g manoeuvres.”
* All rotaries had this but the Camel was perhaps worse than most. That’s just an opinion based upon much reading. I cannot support the statement.
Since the torque effect increased with the power output, it was a limiting factor for this engine type. One German firm attempted to counter by making the prop rotate counter to the engine cylinders & crankcase. It was successful on the Sieman Schuckert but they could not be produced in significant numbers nor in time to do the Germans any good.