The SE5a, WWI fighter: An animated history
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- čas přidán 4. 05. 2023
- The SE5a is widely regarded as one of the greatest fighters of WWI, leading to huge allied success, in this video, we explore its design, its history and all sort of other exciting information.
History and Engineering produces quality videos on some of the great feats of historical engineering, currently we are producing a series on some of the incredible planes from WW1, please do subscribe. - Auta a dopravní prostředky
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Billy Bishop believed the SE5a to be a great, steady, gun platform. He also commented on its impressive performance. Like other WW1 aviators, Bishop, knew that earlier machines were deafening. The SE5a with its long exhaust pipes was a merciful fighter for those who had used other fighters and in the process lost hearing. It is important to read what the WW1 aces had to say about the machines they flew, only these men knew the true improvement the SE5a represented. Computer simulations will never represent the actual experience of flying an aircraft.
To be fair, I do try to read some of their accounts to get a full picture of the plane while writing the script, but maybe including some quotes could be a good idea in future videos.
Deciding which was the best British fighter of WWI depends on which facts you choose to use. The Se5a was a lot easier to fly than the Camel, but it was the Camel that shot down more German aircraft. The loss ratio was high due to it's high accident rate when flown by inexperienced pilots. The Camel's nickname was "The cadet killer."
To this day the most effective fighters, in dog fighting, are those that are unstable and able to be flicked around quickly by expert pilots. The Sopwith Camel fitted the bill for this, The SE 5 was more forgiving but less agile. I know which aircraft Biggles preferred!
@@canopus101 Biggles. Man, but that takes me back a long way!
The Lewis gun was mounted on a rail, to permit reloading (it fired from a 97 round drum). The ability to fire upwards was a benefit, not an intention.
There are photos of Billy Bishop demonstrating (on the ground), how he changes magazines on his Lewis guns.
I read that was a tactic used by Ball: getting under the unsuspecting enemy then emptying a drum into him.
Scarf mount.
1:30 The picture shows Sopwith Snipes, not Sopwith Camels. I know the picture itself is mislabelled, but there are big visual differences between the Camel and the Snipe that are very easy to pick up, e.g. single bay vs two bay wings, flat upper wing vs v-shaped upper wing. The pilot sits considerably higher in the Snipe than a Camel in a more bulbous fuselage.
Good spot, I should really have noticed that seeing as the Camel is one of my favorite planes ever, I must have just seen the label and not really thought about it. Thanks for pointing it out.
Also the Snipe has that weird looking tail fin. What's that for ?
@@jamesharmer9293 Balanced rudder
Shoot, nice catch, Simon.
@@jamesharmer9293 The aircraft in the foreground is the 'early' version and the one behind it is a later version.
I enjoyed the video, but as great as the SE5 was the ace chart provided is misleading. Bishop and Ball scored the majority of their victories in the Nieuport 17, Collishaw and McLaren in Sopwith aircraft. Collishaw in the triplane and Camel.
Ball was not fond of the SE5 because it was the early version with the greenhouse canopy - which was never shown in the video. It was almost like a full canopy like those from the 1930’s.
I think that's a fair point, I suppose the idea I was trying to get across is that the SE5 was so widely used among top aces, in hind sight, I think displaying the number of victories in the SE5 would have been a helpful addition. Thanks for paying such careful attention.
@@historicalenginering
I enjoyed the video and am looking forward to more.
The canopy was a feature of the initial few Se5 150hp types. Ball removed his very early on and the AVRO screen became standard quickly before the A variant. The 220hp HS8B was just an upgraded 200hp engine with high compression pistons. McCudden fitted his own
Nice summary and overview, thx for putting it together!
Very well done.
I'm afraid I really can't get along with computer generated commentary yet, it still sounds machine-like and stilted to me.
Me too!
I Hate it! A lot of times it's a translation program but I still hate it.
I believe there are a fair number of people hold this view, but from my perspective, I am not willing/ able to broadcast my voice on CZcams (for reasons I am not going to go into) so I don't really have an alternative. I have looked into hiring narrators but they all cost a lot of money considering the Chanel is not where near profitable. In all seriousness, I would be grateful to here any alternative suggestions you may have as I'm not a great fan of computer narration either.
I dunno, this is the best AI voice I've ever heard, plus it sounds so properly smart w the English accent. I'm still not sure if it's even really AI, I'd never have thought it wasn't a human's voice.
Edit: Oh, I guess Historical Engineering would know. And yeah, I totally get the privacy and security concerns, especially with anything involving Google. And no, my name isn't RonJon, and I'm really a brilliant Golden Retriever.
@@historicalenginering - It doesn't bother me a bit. I would rather hear this than amateurs like those in Libravox recordings destroy the material with mispronunciations, pauses, and sentences that always go up at the end like a question. I will be looking into this myself as I am unsure that I will be able to read my own books due to health reasons. - Love your channel, keep uploading. - T.R.
From what I'vs read of accounts written by pilots who flew the SE5a it was considered to be fast, reliable and with good climb and dive characteristics. So the tactic of attacking from altitude (which in WW1 might only be 15.000ft), then making a high-speed diving attack and then speeding out of trouble was common. It wasn't so good in a dogfight so pilots were discouraged from getting into a battle of manoeuvre when, instead, you could easily outpace almost all German scout planes.
Very true, speed and structural strength were defiantly its great asset
The Fokker D-7 is widely recognized as the best overall fighter of WW1…so much so that is was specifically named in the Treaty of Versailles as a weapon to be handed over.
Very true, in the conclusion I probably should have specified best British plane which is more what I was going for as a sentiment.
I'm defiantly looking forward to putting the video together on the Fokker together, it really was a brilliant plane.
@@historicalenginering …you did a great review of the SE5A …..I would say it gave the D-7 trouble….
This claim you repeat is a myth. It was not the Versailles treaty which claimed the Fokkers. It was the armistice agreement. Section IV of the armistice agreement is as follows:
IV. Surrender in good condition by the German armies of the following
equipment: 5,000 guns (2,500 heavy, 2,500 field), 25,000 machine guns,
3,000 trench mortars, 1,700 aeroplanes (fighters, bombers-firstly all D. 7's
and night-bombing machines).
The DVII's were just part of what had to be turned over. Although they were mentioned specifically and no other weapon was so honored. Also, all the DVII's had to be accounted for, along with all night bombers, first before any other aircraft could be counted as part of the 1,700.
@@historicalenginering no! he is wrong and you are right, simple fact, top speed of the Fokker DVII Was 117 mph, top speed of the SE5a 130 mph, 13 mph slower!!!!! No way was the Fokker DVII the best fighter of the war.
The D7 was the FW190 of WW 1?
Well done, I'm your newest subscriber!
Good job.
Two points , the SE5a was the best fighter of WW1. The high losses of the RFC was all due to the with policy of being offensive . The Germans rarely crossed the lines , saw better gains in sitting upstairs waiting for the British .
The battle of Cambrai in November 1917 , the first use of land forces , Tanks supported by Artillery , with aircraft in the fighter bomber role . Cost the RFC 400 planes.
The same devil may care attitude of throwing aircraft at the enemy was continued in the battle of France 1940. Great loss of life in crews flying obsolete aircraft. Fairy Battle and the Blenheim . Those pilots were well trained . just put in an impossible situation , like their fathers in WW1.
Agree. A key factor was the SE5a was fast - British fighter aircraft (DH2, FE2, Pup, Tripe, Camel) had tended to be more maneuverable but slower than the German equivalents, so the German could always dive away (if the wings didn't fall off) and escape. A British pilot couldn't do the same (which doomed Hawker). The SE5a reversed that.
The spitfire of ww1? It was the flippin hurricane - easier to fly, good gun platform, took more punishment.
The camel was the spitfire, more manouverable, harder to master, struck fear into the hearts of the enemy.
Flown by Biggles. The end.
Ignore the Archie and look for the Hun in the sun.
Spitfire was faster than the Hurricane... Camel was slower than the S.E.5a. The S.E.5a also had good high altitude performance, like the Spitfire. The Camel didn't. The S.E.5a also had a superior climb rate, like the Spitfire.
Camels were used to destroy nearly 3,000 enemy planes - more than any other aircraft of WWI.
Albert Ball was a high scoring ace before getting put in an SE-5a, which he did not like, and in a SE5a he died.
Having spoken to a current pilot who now flys WW1 rotary powered airplanes. He states that the Chinese whispers from one book to another have made it seam like only super humans could fly them. In reality the torque effects are not that bad and with simply rotating pistons they are smooth as glass.
That's interesting about the chinese whispers idea, its true that a lot of pilots struggled to fly the camels, bu I guess that sentiment probably does build an idea that they were impossible to fly, which fortunately they weren't
I think you'll find the Sopwith Camel appeared a few months after the SE5. Not the other way round.
Self proclaimed experts abound. AT :59 those are Sopwith Snipes not Camels. Twin sets of struts per side, that balance horn on the rudder are easy to see.
Correct, sadly the picture was mis labeled and when I put it in I obviously didn't look to hard, very sorry.
"S.E.5a's Don't wobble!"
1:44 messed up the conversions in the graphic.
2:10 the Vickers was mounted on the top wing outside the propeller arc.
2:10 Actually, the Vickers was mounted on the center-left side of the fuselage ahead of the cockpit and was angled upwards by 5 degrees. The machine gun mounted on the top wing was a Lewis. (btw, the label in the graphic points to the telescopic gunsight).
Apologies for the conversion mistake, 19,500ft=5950m, I will certainly make sure to check conversions more carefully in future. As for the comments about the gun, David is quite right, the Lewis gun was mounted on the upper wing and the Vickers gun fired through the propeller, as explained in the video.
With regard to the arrow pointing at the telescopic sight, that was not intentional as the arrow is not terribly precise and the gun is not visible, however I think that the many other clips and images of the forward guns make up for this. I am working on ways to animate displaying things such as guns to make it easier to understand.
Thanks for watching so carefully.
FWIW: The *SE5a* is one of my favorite WWI fighter aircraft.
A great fighter but seriously under gunned compared to German types. The Sopwith Camel was far more manoeuvrable but difficult to fly for inexperienced pilots. The SE 5 is better compared to the Hurricane as they where both stable gun platforms and could take more battle damage. The Camel went on to be the progenitor of many post war fighter designs so is a better comparison for the Spitfire.
Lets ~Salute~ the modders who spent years refining that Virtual plane to be a exact replica. (all of them in teh Video)
The Camel was the Spitfire, the SE5 was the Hurricane. Media darling v work horse.
The SE5A certainly contributed greatly to the allied air war effort but i would question it being compared to the spitfire. It was fast at 126 mph but lacked maneuverability due to its inline engine. A hit and run aircraft it lacked the dog fighting abilites of the camel . In earlier decades the camel i believe was often reguarded as the best British warplane which was probably based on the official number of 1291 enemy aircraft downed compared to about 700 i think for the SE5A . Although this might depend on numbers deployed etc. Two quite different aircraft but both played important roles in their own right. Abilities and different preferences of the individual pilots would probably have a large influence on which aircraft were favoured.
Sue eeza engine and an aldies gun sight 👍
Nice video I own a scale RC SE5A. I'm not an ace yet only flown through one other plane.
Don't forget the Spad series and Nieuport fighters the French fielded! The SE5 occupies a place similar to the Hawker Hurricane in WW2, forgiving of mistakes and dependable. By 1917 the nature of aerial warfare was already changing, away from 'Knights of the air' and towards the military industrial complex that would be refined throughout the 1930s and come to brutally dominate WW2 through the giant American arsenal developed from 1941 onwards.
I wouldn't want to forget either of them, defiantly excited to be working on videos for both of them, but I think I would stand by the Spitfire quote, it it worth remembering that the Spad and Nieuport were French and mainly supplied the US and French. The RFC had to work mostly with the SE5 and Camel for fighters in the later part of the war and out of the fighters the RFC had, the SE5 defiantly stands out as most successful plane, would agree on the rest though, the forgiving and dependable nature was one of its great strengths. Also true about the industrialization, as I briefly mentioned in the video, having a good supply chain was critical to having a good plane, another reason the SE5 could see such success.
@Historical Enginering The production of the Wolseley Viper engine echos that of the Packhard Merlin too. Take a fundamentally good design, though labour intensive and underdeveloped and then entrust it to a company with a track record of investment, organisation and R&D skills.
Here go Jim, next we are going comment on how the Americans saved little old England in both wars. Get a grip Jim!
@tim phillips Sure did boy, we saved your asses from the Commies too. 😀
@@jimdavis8391your flippin lot were actually proper involved in ww1 for a total of about 4 sodding weeks. And it took a direct attack by uboat to get you off your arses. And you call the french cowards.
You didnt see any combat worth mentioning until the ANZACs and Canadians had already punched through the huns lines and put them to flight.
Your lot MOPPED UP. Then ran round bragging for the next 100 years.
Sold to both sides up until you finally got off your arses and did the right thing then fuckt about for over a year forcing the french and british to feed, clothe and arm your sorry arses for a year before you wandered into a fight that was already OVER.
WW2? If japan didnt attack you and germany declare war you might never have gotten involved.
And you call the french cowards.
Did some good work in the pacific.
But remember
Macarthur himself considered 1 Australian division worth 3 American...and he was never game to unleash the bloody mayhem that was the division that made up the NZ in ANZAC (and no im not a kiwi. Im just bloody glad theyre on our side).
Great video, spoilt by the “Voice”
I have a question How do the shoot down ratios of French fighters compare with those of the British and commonwealth?
To me it sounds like in many ways the SE5A was the Hurricane of the First World War and the Camel was the Spitfire equivalent 🤔
Go Billy Bishop
The aircraft shown at around 1 minute in are Sopwith Snipes, not Camels. Very different
Billy Bishop 72 kills?- Well that's what they say.
The SE5a was the first model plane I ever built. I was 7. The Albatross D3 was the second and I liked it's shape better. But, the D3 killed a lot of pilots when the lower wing failed in steep dives. What did I know? I was 7.
Hang onnnn bishop became an ace in the nieuport 17.
The Title screen refers to it as the RAF SE5. That's partially correct - it should be RFC, the RAF wasn't formed till after WW1.
Oops, ok I just realised RAF in this case meant Royal Aircraft Factory! My oops.
Well, dang. Never heard of the SE5. I always thought the sop with camel was the best. Never stop learning.
It's defiantly undervalued as it wasn't so iconic, but performed a great service, Thanks for watching
@@historicalenginering I think you mean definitely. Defiantly is not the droid you're looking for.
@@multa765 Correct, that's auto spell check for you, thanks
Biggles flew the Camel.
You omitted reference to the Bristol fighter
Well as an unindoctrinated teenager in the 60's. I built the Sopwith Camel, the SE5a and the Fokker DVII models as control line flyers. I Loved both the Camel and the Fokker for lines of beauty and innovation. I'd seen nothing but boring films about the SE5 and thought it was too rudimentary. But just maybe, I saw the first uninspiring version and lost interest in it.
Thank you for the video. I built a full scale Sopwith pup so I have done a lot of research on the subject. Sorry but the spitfire was not the SE5a, the Camel was. Both the Spit and the Camel were described as "Tramps on the ground and ladies in the air" by those who flew them. The Camel inherited its bad ground handling from the Pup. And they were MUCH better than the Dr1 or the early Nieuports. Verses a modern plane they truly suck on the ground.
The Bristol "Misfit" would be the Mosquito or maybe the Beaufighter. Great and relatively big plane, got to taxi in one of them. Maybe a better comparison would be SE5a is equal to the P51, just all round good plane. Or maybe SE5a is equal to the Hellcat (a solid and very good/stable plane) and the Camel is equal to the F4U. Cheers.
This feels very bias toward the S.E.5. Undoubtedly a great early energy fighter, and a solid standard, but it's very telling that _good_ pilots found it a bit basic and preferred the handling other aircraft were capable of, such as the Sopwiths.
To me, the single greatest point of the S.E.5 is its ability to dive beyond speeds of its peers of the time. That alone must have saved countless inexperienced pilots.
Your wrong mate....the sopwith was the spitfire, the SE was much likthehurricane ,an ignored gem.
Looks like a flying brick.
Don't let it hit you then 😊
I can't get over how you talk about the SE5a as the best British fighter of WWI, then show a bunch of footage of a rookie getting his butt kicked by easy AIs.
Was it also referred to as a "Jenny"?
Good Contant, however, I would prefer you narrate it yourself please…
👍👍 🇺🇸
🇺🇸=💩 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Why didn't the Americans use them? They flew Spads, Nieuports, and Camels. Why not SE5s?
To the best of my knowledge, it's because the SE5 was produced by the Royal Aircraft Factory, which was a state owned thing that produced the planes for the RFC, and that was their priority. On the other hand, Sopwith (maker of the Camel) was a private company so would sell to anyone with money, as was the same for the french Nieuports and Spads.
I read that the Americans had 2 squadrons equipped with the SE 5a, but eventually all American pursuit squadrons were equipped with the SPAD XIII.
Music too loud. Thumbs down.
Surely the best fighter of WWI was the Fokker DVII. At the RAF museum at Hendon, it's pointed out amongst the exhibits that the Fokker DVII was the only machine that the allies insisted on getting access to as part of the peace treaty. Although it was a biplane (hence the "D" for Doppeldecker in the number), unlike contemporary designs, it didn't use bracing wires. The wings were cantilevered. Also it could "hang" on its propeller for a period without stalling into a spin (unlike the Camel). As it arrived after the SE5, it made less of a contribution, but allied pilots quickly grew to respect it.
That is certainly a convincing argument, I think I should have made it more clear I was suggesting it was the best British fighter of the war
Talks about bloody april.
Shows shitty be2cs and an mighty FE2. The Fe was much loved by their crews. Biggles once fought off 15 no 20 albatros3 in an fe! Youre a damnable hun robot sir.
Wheres the lovely agile sopwith pup that the bloody huns were terrified of?
I will give you that both the Pup and FE were great planes, but by bloody April they just weren't as scary, by this point the Pup was becoming simply too slow and the SE5 was also just not quick or agile enough by that point, and whilst I love Biggles, I wouldn't base my assessments of planes on what he could do.
Side notes, I think I choose not to include the Pup for the simply reasons that it is easy to confuse with the Camel for some, and the screen was just trying to give an overview. Also the next video being animated is the FE2b.
AI writen
Not rotary it’s a radial the rotary is a wankel it came along much later
Actually it was a rotary engine in the Camel, people often seem to get this confused.
A rotary engine is like a radial engine (such as in the Sopwith Pup) but the whole cylinder arrangement spins (allowing for self cooling, and a severe gyroscopic effect). The Wankel engine is something completely different, sometimes incorrectly labeled as a rotary engine, it was nothing to do with First World War planes.
For more information, I go into some detail on how rotary engines work in my video on the Sopwith Camel
Do you get so much information wrong because you're a computer or just don't know? ✌️
I would be interested to know what mistakes you are going on about, I am aware of two small errors which I have responded to, an incorrect conversion from feet to meters and inserting a mislabeled picture of a Sopwith Snipe. I find it much more palatable when people decide to insult me when they actually have some substance.
@@historicalenginering the armament arrangement for one .
@@johnking6252 Care to elaborate, as far as I am aware all that information is correct
@@historicalenginering I thought it originally just had the wing gun .
@@johnking6252 Not as far as I'm aware, certainly the original production SE5s had both guns, possibly a very early prototype lacked the forward gun, but I see that as quite unlikely since fighters without a standard forward gun were few and far between, certainly I have been unable to find any record of it.
Stop the music its so distracting I can watch something that should be interesting. Very unprofessional.
Much as I wish it that they did, most of my audience do not have your level of attention span and the music helps them to remain intrested. Also, whilst I have received on complaint from you about it, I have received an enormous number of complaints about the boorishness of the computer generated voice, and I think that this is a good way to help alleviate some of that. Sorry if it upsets you
No armor and no parachute, no wonder they lost so many pilots.
I HATE computer narration.
So many mistakes and misinformation in this video, just not worth the time to list them all. Why do people with so little basic knowledge make such videos? Money?
I would be interested to know what mistakes you are going on about, I am aware of two small errors which I have responded to, an incorrect conversion from feet to meters and inserting a mislabeled picture of a Sopwith Snipe. I find it much more palatable when people decide to insult me when they actually have some substance.
1.26 Radial not Rotary,,...😊
With respect, I believe you would be incorrect on that point, the Camel was notorious for having a rotary engine, hence the gyroscopic effect causing its fast right hand turn, as referenced in this video. I go into some detail on my video on the Camel as to how its rotary engine works. (czcams.com/video/nrh_jvt4Utg/video.html)
For clarity, a radial engine is one where the cylinders are fixed in a circular shape spinning the propeller in the center, by contrast, a rotary engine, is one where the center of the engine is fixed and the cylinders all spin around it turning the propeller with them
Yes rotary. The entire engine turned with the prop. The problem with this was it's tendency to always pull to the right because of torque. The Camel was completely unstable in flight. The pilot could never take their hands off the stick and they had to fly it all the way to the ground when landing. It's instability was a curse to novice pilots but a boon to experienced ones.
German pilots hated the Camel because of it's maneuverability. They hated the SE5A because of it's speed.
Hahahahaha another clown 😂😂
I would say the Dolphin was better than the SE5.
It was not that advanced! You want advanced WW1 plane look at the German Junkers j9/D1... an all metal, monoplane fighter!!!
I think I'd agree that it wasn't amazingly advanced, but I think it was still quite good, mainly because it was both pretty advanced AND produced on a very large scale, they only built a handful J9s I think
Awful computer generated voiceover.
Learn the difference between the SE5, and the SE5a. Your verbal report is flawed badly.
AI voice and script farting out content? No thanks, content farm
Yet another robo-voiced, AI scripted vid. Bizarre sentence structure & clumsy delivery. Welcome to the new world. 😝
They didn’t have a rotary engine in WW1 it was a radial engine
No. It's a rotary engine. Radial is a configuration; rotary is a mode of FUNCTION. The crankcase and cylinders literally rotate (spin) around a crankshaft that is bolted stationary to the airframe.
Don't confuse the rotary engine (developed in the 1890s) with the Wankel engine that was developed some 2+ decades after the "original" rotary.
Bahahahahahaha you should delete this idiotic comment
So lazy just to have an AI generated video and voice. It jars and I stopped watching soon into it. I’d rather read the info myself as there is. O insight or added value to this mechanical reader of text.
The SE5 was an average fighter and not developed for good reason a stated. Definitely NOT the best fighter of WW1.
AI voice is getting annoying. I wish this fad would stop.
someone to lazy to actually narrate a video they got a machine to do it thumbs down
Had you READ the previous comments the need for a replacement voice was perfectly well explained.
Too lazy