Pfalz D.III
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The Pfalz D.III was a World War I fighter aircraft, the first major original design from Pfalz Flugzeugwerke. Though widely used by the Luftstreitkrafte, the type remains fairly obscure today.
The Everbusch brothers had formed Pfalz with the intention of building other designer's aircraft under license. Prior to WWI they licensed a number of Morane-Saulnier designs, and with the start of the war turned to those from Roland, notably the Roland D.I and Roland D.II.
In April 1917 they decided to produce their own design, although it owed much to the earlier Roland designs. The key innovation, learned from Roland, was the use of a monocoque fuselage made from thin strips of plywood that were glued together over of a mold. This method, called Wickelrumph, gave the plane great strength compared to conventional construction techniques. However, the Wickelrumph method was labor intensive and prone to warping due to moisture absorption.
The resulting Pfalz D.III looked very similar to the earlier Roland design, or the more famous Albatros D.III, due to the fish-like shape of the fuselage. The most notable difference was the Pfalz's unusual rudder profile, which was cut off under the fuselage line to provide clearance for the one-piece elevator. Like the Albatros, the Pfalz D.III featured a flush Teeves and Braun radiator buried in the upper wing, offset to the right of the pilot.
The prototype D.III first flew in May 1917, and deliveries to operational units began in August. The D.III was generally considered inferior to the Albatros D.III or D.V. Contemporary pilot accounts variously criticized the Pfalz's lack of speed, lack of power, or lack of climb compared to the Albatros.
Unlike the Albatros, however, the Pfalz was structurally sound. The Pfalz could safely dive at high speeds due to its sturdy, twin-spar wing structure. This made it a favorite for shooting down observation balloons, which were heavily defended with anti-aircraft guns trained to the balloon's altitude. Attacking a balloon was generally attempted by approaching at a higher altitude, and then diving on it at high speed to give the guns as little time to fire as possible.
The only major complaint among the pilots who used it in this role was that the machine guns were buried in the forward fuselage, making it impossible to clear jams in-flight. This led to the slightly modified D.IIIa, which moved the guns to the upper decking. The D.IIIa was distinguishable by its enlarged semicircular horizontal stabilizer, which made it easier to pull out of dives. The D.IIIa further featured cropped lower wingtips and a more powerful Mercedes engine. The D.IIIa entered service in November 1917.
About 300 Pfalz D.III's and 750 D.IIIa's were built in total. In August 1918 about 450 were still in service.
Their follow-on design, the Pfalz D.VIII, also used the monocoque fuselage, but looked considerably different due to the mounting of the Siemens-Halske Sh.III rotary piston engine. The engine proved to be a constant problem, and only a handful of D.VIII's were delivered. Both were eventually replaced in production by the Pfalz D.XII.
Specifications
- Engine: 160 hp Mercedes D.III
- Dimensions: span 9.40 m, length 6.95 m
- Weight: 689 kg dry, 922 kg MTO
- Max speed: 164 km/h
- Ceiling: 4900 m
- Armament: 2 x 7.92 mm LMG 08/15 "Spandau" machine guns
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