[WWI] Airco DH.5

[Phaelen Bleux]

Biplane of the Month Club: January (supplemental)

Airco DH.5
When de Havilland began working on his first scout airplane, he wanted to assure the pilot an excellent field of view, as had been afforded by the DH.1 and DH.2. The DH.1 and DH.2 had been pusher-planes, however, and thus of lesser performance. With the introduction of the Constantinesco interrupter gear (allowing a machine gun to be fired through the arc of the propeller), tractor configurations allowed increased performance, no obstruction to forward fire, but a decreased field of view by the placement of the upper wing. De Havilland attempted to solve the latter problem by staggering the upper wing backwards, placing the pilot in front of the wing for an unobstructed field of view. Beyond this slight modification, the plane was of conventional design and construction.
The DH.5 was well constructed and fully aerobatic. Unfortunately, pilots mistrusted the design due to its unusual layout, and the plane performed poorly above 10,000 feet. It reached the front in 1917, and while a decent combat aircraft, was shortly supplanted by the more combat capable Sopwith Camel and Royal Aircraft Factory SE.5a. By 1918, the DH.5 had been relegated to the ground attack role, then finally as an advanced trainer.
The DH.5 has a historical endurance of 2 hours, 45 minutes. The aircraft burns 4.1 gallons of gas per hour at routine usage. A full load of fuel and ammo (excluding bombs) costs $10.

Subassemblies: Recon Fighter chassis +2; Recon Fighter wings Biplane option +2; 2 fixed wheels +0.
Powertrain: 82-kW aerial HP gasoline engine with 82-kW old prop and 25-gallon fuel tank [Body].
Occ.: 1 XCS Body
Cargo: 8 Body

Armor
Body: 2/2C
Wings: 1/1C
Wheels: 2/3

Weaponry:
Aircraft LMG/.303 Vickers LMG [Body:F] (500 rounds).
4x25-lb. bombs [Wings:U]

Equipment:
Wings: Two 50-lb. hardpoints.

Statistics:
Size: 22'x26'x9' Payload: 0.24 tons Lwt.: 0.75 tons
Volume: 96 Maint.: 127 hours Cost: $2,461

HT: 7. HPs: 15 Body, 50 each Wing, 3 each Wheel.

aSpeed: 102 aAccel: 3 aDecel: 48 aMR: 12 aSR: 1
Stall Speed: 35 mph. Take-Off Run: 162 yards. Landing Run: 130 yards.

gSpeed: 168 gAccel: 8 gDecel: 10 gMR: 0.5 gSR: 2
Ground Pressure: High. 1/6 Off-Road Speed.

Design Notes:
Design aSpeed was 94 mph; the historical value is shown above. The historical wing area is 212 sf. Design loaded weight is 1458 lbs.; this was raised 2% to the historical. Historical values for loaded weight and wing area were used for performance calculations. The MG load-out is a guess based on available payload. The forward fixed Vickers MG is synchronized, lowering RoF by 10% (see p. W:MP8). The design purchases a 30-gallon fuel tank; the historical capacity is shown. Since 1/6 gSpeed is still 78% of stall speed, this craft can still get airborne in a bumpy field, at the GM's discretion.