Flying The Old Planes - Part 3: Se.5a

[Pips 5]

Extract from the book "Flying The Old Planes" by Frank Tallman, 1973.

 

Have you ever looked at the lines of a plane and from experience known instinctively that it will be all you expect? Such a plane is the British Se.5. It’s appearance reminds one of the British bulldog: sturdy, short, not beautiful but honest and dependable.

 

As you take it from the hanger the first thing to check is the radiator. It is adequate under most normal conditions, but it should be full. Next pull the undercowl by releasing the piano hinges, reach in, and with a wrench unscrew the oil plugs in the case. Staring from the top plug, to check the oil. Check your fuel tanks – the main tank is in front of the pilot. Then the leader tank, which is actually the leading edge of the centre section. Now walk around the Se, paying particular attention to the exhaust stacks, the shock cord, and the landing gear fittings, your dual set of flying and landing wires and, most particularly, the tail surfaces, with their bracing wires underneath and above.

 

On your way to the flight line you would notice that in manually lifting the tail of the Se.5, it is light in comparison with many other WWI aircraft. This is primarily due to the landing gear being set rearward, almost even with the leading edge of the wing. This was a source of embarrassment to some, occasionally causing nose-overs when landing and taking off.

 

Climbing in to the Se.5 make sure to swing you leg well clear of the exhaust pipe, which extends past the cockpit coaming. Your hand falls easily to the circular spade joystick. The rudder bar is set off the floor and has a top for your foot so that it cannot slip off when the plane is inverted. Oddly the throttle and mixture are set on the right on a little shelf (rather than the left as in almost all other aircraft), and the mixture control when full open is to the rear when your throttle at the same time goes forward!

 

All Hisso engines have to be loaded up with throttle back and switch off and the propeller moved back and forth until you get some fuel overflow. Check carefully to see your gas valve is on. When ‘contact’ is called and the prop is swung “clear”, rotate the booster mag handle, and the engine will catch and start easily with a nice gentle rumble. It idles nicely below 500 rpm. After allowing the water temperature to rise and checking oil pressure mags, you’re clear to go.

 

The heart-lifting thrill of shoving the throttle forward is never lost, at least to me, and it was there as I pushed forward the control of the Se.5. The tail levelled almost instantly. Because the propeller is slow-turning (about 1500 rpm on take-off), you have no appreciable torque and very little engine noise. The Se.5 was airborne in 246 feet, and could have gotten off somewhat sooner if required. You have a nice positive feel, and you are climbing out at about 75 to 80 mph with a rate of climb approaching 900 feet per minute.

 

Straight and level at 3,000 feet, I noticed slight tail heaviness, even with the trim tab wheel forward. The cockpit is roomy by WWI standards; comfortable, with fine visibility and very little wind flow.

 

Wide open I was indicating 127 mph and 1650 rpm at 3,000 feet. Settling back to cruise, I locked my belt and brought the stick back for a stall. It pays off gently, but with a sharp right wing drop at an indicated 52 mph. Invariably, in a stall, the right wing dropped. I tried a spin – one turn nicely, cleanly to the right; unfortunately, it would only spiral to the left and, I believe sensibly, I did not try to force it in. with any aircraft over fifty years old I eat a little raw heart with aerobatics, for no matter how careful you check it, anything can fatigue in this length of time.

 

Being careful to keep heavy stick pressures out of my work, I pulled up into vertical reverses in both directions, an it held on nicely and reversed well with rudder. Looping at 135 mph went well but got slightly soft at the top, where I was indicating 60 mph, but it came through without my hanging on the belt. Cuban 8’s went well, but the engine spewed fuel out on my descending half roll and cut out for a period of four seconds. It slow rolls nicely to the left, but you need 115 mph to carry you through for the time the engine cuts out. Unfortunately, in rolling to the right it resists strongly, and you get a roll that is impossible to do smoothly and takes much time. Flick rolls or snap rolls were nice to the right at 85 mph, but completely impossible to the left, for it stalls straight forward and will not snap with any combination of stick and rudder movements.

 

Controls are positive but slightly heavy, and even with low ‘G’ manoeuvres the stick force required makes one feel the effort. To throw the Se.5 around with abandon would require a fit young man with muscle. Especially for any length of time or at high altitude.

 

Entering the traffic pattern I circled as I waited for the green light. Once it flashed I started a gentle turn into my grass area, holding about 75 to 80 mph indicated. By now the strangeness of flying with my left hand and using the throttle with my right was gone. Like all early aircraft the Se.5 pays off very quickly, and in attempting to check my touchdown speed on the airspeed indicator I bounced but caught it with stick and a little rudder. It indicated about 54 mph. The rudder was quite positive and the steerable tailskid is one of the few WWI planes so equipped, making taxiing very easy.

 

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STATS: From “British Aeroplanes 1914 – 1918” by J. M. Bruce

 

Se.5

Empty Weight: 1,406 lbs (638 kg)

Loaded Weight: 1,940lbs (879 kg)

Engine: 150 hp Wolseley-built Hispano Suiza

Max Speed: 120 mph (193 km/h) @ 6,500 feet (1981m); 116 mph (187 km/h) @ 10,000 feet (3048m); 105 mph (169 km/h) @ 15,000 feet (4572m)

Climb Rates: 5 minutes 35 seconds to 5,000 feet (); 7 minutes 50 seconds to 6,500ft ( 1981m); 13 minutes 40 seconds to 10,000 feet (3048m); 29 minutes 10 seconds to 15,000 feet (4572m).

Ceiling: 17,000 feet (5182m)

Endurance: 2 ½ hours

Armament: one fixed Vickers mg, one Lewis mg on a Foster mounting

No’s Built: 5,205 of all types with 828 built in 1917 and 4,377 in 1918. In total 1,999 were sent to France.

 

Se.5a

Empty Weight: 1,580 lbs (716 kg)

Loaded Weight: 2,034 lbs (922 kg)

Engine: 200 hp Wolseley-built Hispano Suiza

Max Speed: 132 mph (212 km/h) @ 6,500 feet (1981m); 128 mph (205 km/h) @ 10,000 feet (3048m); 115 mph (185 km/h) @ 15,000 feet (4572m)

Climb Rates: 6 minutes 0 seconds to 6,500ft ( 1981m); 11 minutes 20 seconds to 10,000 feet (3048m); 22 minutes 55 seconds to 15,000 feet (4572m).

Ceiling: 19,000 feet (5791m)

Endurance: 2 1/4 hours

Armament: one fixed Vickers mg, one Lewis mg on a Foster mounting

No’s Built: 5,205 of all types with 828 built in 1917 and 4,377 in 1918. In total 1,999 were sent to France

[Hasse Wind 46]

Pips, these extracts are currently the most interesting reading here, in my opinion. Mr Tallman makes some fascinating observations, and they must be pretty accurate too, considering the planes he flew were the originals. Too bad his book isn't available anymore, at least not with reasonable price. But please keep posting these extracts if you can!

[Dej 17]

Pips, these extracts are currently the most interesting reading here, in my opinion. Mr Tallman makes some fascinating observations, and they must be pretty accurate too, considering the planes he flew were the originals. Too bad his book isn't available anymore, at least not with reasonable price. But please keep posting these extracts if you can!

 

I agree with Hasse Wind. That piece was particulalrly interesting as the SE5a was the first machine I flew in OFF and I cursed the fact that it couldn't seem to roll in a consistent fashion... now I know why. I'll have to go back to it.

[Pips 5]

Here's another view of the ability of the SE 5 in a fight. Both are drawn from the classic book "Sagittarius Rising" by Cecil Lewis, and provide another perspective of the SE 5 performance - as well as the confidence that the aircraft engenders. Both are from when Lewis was serving with 56 Squadron, by which time he was a very experienced pilot on his second tour, and with several kills to his credit.

 

 

Extract 1

Rumours of the new SE 5 with a 200 hp engine had been prevalent for some weeks, and at last the machine arrived. I was detailed to take it up on the test. I found it faster, and it climbed so well that, since it was a beautiful evening, I decided to find it's ceiling.

 

At ten thousand feet the view was immense, England quartered on its northern perimeter. Oh to be home again. Just to be over England, even if one could not land! After all, why not? I turned north. At twenty thousand feet, Kent was below me. The faintest drift of blue smoke from the chimneys of some country houses. There would be the scent of a wood fire down there, far, far, far below.

 

The wing-tips of the planes, ten feet away, suddenly caught my eye, and for a second the amazing adventure of flight overwhelmed me. Nothing between me and oblivion but a pair of light linen-covered wings and the roar of a 200-h.p. engine! There was the fabric, bellying slightly in the suction above the plane, the streamlined wires, taut and quivering, holding the wing structure together, the three-ply body, the array of instruments, and the slight tremor of the whole aeroplane.

 

I looked long at the island below me, then shut off the engine, and in one long, unbroken glide swept back to France. I came over St. Omer at about five thousand feet and saw a back-staggered scout circling the aerodrome. I turned to have a look. When I came close, I saw it was one of the new Sopwith Dolphins. I plunged down on its tail as a challenge for a scrap. This new SE I was flying would be more than a match for anything in the sky.

 

The reader will not take it amiss if I say that by this time I was a fairly competent pilot. I could do every stunt then invented with ease and style. I admitted none to be my superior in the handling of an aeroplane. So I confess I dived on the Dolphin with the intention of showing him just how and aeroplane should be flown in a fight, sitting on his tail for a bit and then, when it was quite obvious I had killed him ten times over, coming up alongside, waving him a gracious good-bye and proceeding to my aerodrome.

 

But it didn't work out a bit like that. The Dolphin had a better performance than I realised. He was up in a climbing turn and on my tail in a flash. I half rolled out of the way, he was still there. I sat in a tight climbing spiral, he sat in a tighter one. I tried to climb above him, he climbed faster. Every dodge I had ever learnt I tried on him: but he just sat there on my tail, for all the world as if I had been towing him behind me. Who was the fellow anyway? What was it coming to when test pilots at Aircraft Depots could put it over a crack pilot of 56? The Dolphin shut off and dropped to the carpet. I followed. We jumped out of our machines. I seemed to recognise the spare figure crossing towards me. He lifted his goggles. It was Patrick!

 

"Well, Lewis," he said, as we shook hands, laughing, "I see your still learning to fly?"

(Patrick was the O.C of the testing and ferry pilots at Marquise in March 1916 when Lewis first arrived in France on his first tour).

 

 

Extract 2

A Wing of French machines had been sent up from the south to operate in the Dunkerque area. In order to familarise the French pilots with all types of British aircraft operating in the sector (so they might not shoot down friendlies by mistake), a machine from every British Squadron was sent over for the French pilots to see. I was detailed to take over an SE. The French flew SPADS, a neat low-winged biplane, and it's leader was the famous French ace, Guynemer. He had three aircraft, a standard SPAD VII, a high compression SPAD and a larger special machine (SPAD XII) made by the same firm with a 200-h.p. Hispano engine fitted with a cannon.

 

A race was held between the two special SPAD's and the SE 5. Their speeds were almost identical, but the high-compression SPAD climbed quicker. After the race was over, Guynemer and I held a demonstration combat over the aerodrome. Again I was badly worsted. Guynemer was all over me. In his hands the SPAD was a marvel of flexibility. In the first minute I should have been shot down a dozen times. Nothing I could do would shift that grim-looking French scout off my tail. Guynemer sat there, at about thirty yards range, perfectly master of the situation. In self-justification, I feel I must add that both the Sopwith Dolphin and the SPAD were more manoeuverable than the SE 5. So that, given equal flying ability, they would win. Given Guynemer's still greater skill, the SE 5 was right out of it. At last we came down, landed, shook hands, and went into the Mess to drink sweet wine and eat sugar cakes. Only a week later Guynemer was shot down and killed.

 

To be fair to the SE the above combats are not necessarily the way to fight the SE 5. And although they do portray a fairly accurate comparison in head to head combat, it would not have been the way Lewis would have fought in the real kill or be killed arena. The SE is not the sort of aircraft to get in close and dogfight with, unlike more nimble aeroplanes like the Tripe, Pup and Camel. As Lewis describes several times in his book combat was more a case of using height, climb rate and speed to out manoeuver your opponent, so as to drop on him when he was at a disadvantage. "A pilot would go down on the tail of a Hun, hoping to catch him in the first burst; but he would not be wise to stay there, for another Hun would almost certainly be on his tail hoping to gte him in the same way. Such fights were really a series of rushes, with momentary pauses to select the next opportunity - to catch the enemy at a disadvantage, or seperated from his friends."

 

The same approach is described several times in McCudden's marvellous book "Flying Fury". The SE's strength, like the SPAD, is better suited to the vertical than the horizontal, and woe betide anyone foolish enough to fight otherwise.

Edited July 7, 2009 by Pips

[Dej 17]

Hmm, I should have remembered that bit since I only read SR again a month or so back. Does reinforce the questions about the SPAD FMs.

 

Perhaps the SE is better at turning than it should be, I didn't have a real problem turnfighting with it in OFF - which is as close as I'll get to flying the real thing - so long as I turned early. But that was before I tried the Tripe and realised what 'turning' meant! I'll have to give the SPADs a go if the FMs are revised

 

And thanks again for posting this, Pips, I tried the SE out in QC last night mindful of the speeds Tallman mentioned above and it does roll consistently after all... obviously my prior experience was a case of machine performance negated by pilot ignorance.