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What about a section on Survivors and/or replicas? There is a replica in the National Museum of the USAF, another at the Army Aviation Museum. There is a flying replica at the Great War Flying Museum. Doubtless there are others.-- Plane nutz ( talk) 19:36, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
The idea of designing a new fighter in late 1917 with a single machine gun seems incredible - is there a reliable source that claims this? One gun was mounted off to one side because the top of the fuselage (and thus the gap between the centre section struts) was too narrow for both guns to be mounted in what was generally believed to be the best place (directly in front of the pilot's face). In the absense of any ability to mind read the designers, or, so far as I can tell, any contemporary documentation of this question I have just left it ambiguous - all production machines had provision for two guns (although some American pilots flew "28s" with a single gun, either because of a shortange of guns, or to wring a little extra performance out of the type - so lets just say that. It may well be that the very narrow gap between the top wing and the fuselage on at least one prototype was increased to facilitate the installation of at least one "directly sightable" gun - but since this was just one of several different wing arrangements that were experimented with during development I don't think we can assume this - nor would I trust a modern "glossy" aviation book that made the claim unless there were very strong reasons for doing so. -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 02:10, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
Small correction: 103rd Aero did not use the type, this is probably being confused with the 147th Aero which actually did. The 147the Aero Squadron was the 4th unit in the 1st Pursuit Group, which the other Nieuport 28 users were a part of (94th, 95th, and 27th Aero Squadrons). The 103rd Aero was the ex-Lafayette Escadrille and used SPAD's from what I recall, never using the Nieuport 28. -Scott S.
Additional detail like this is actually just what we can always use - but it really does need to be referenced. Could we have a reference or two? The following statements, in particular seem (at first blush anyway) to be highly unlikely and/or out of synch with "well known facts". (Yes I know, "well-known" doesn't always equal "correct", alas).
1. Later supplementary order (when was this placed? and was it cancelled at war's end?). All other sources say that the initial 300 or so were originally ordered by the French, who decided they didn't really want them after all, and passed virtually all of them to the Americans as an interim substitute for SPAD orders that could not at first be met due to engine shortages.
2. Performance. Published figures show respectable but far from outstanding (in fact pretty mediocre) speed and climb, especially when compared with other fighters in use in the second half of 1918. Published performance figures are NOT always right or complete - but do you have well-cited figures giving the higher rates of speed and climb implied in your revised text? (Or perhaps more complete figures showing that the maximum speed usually given was (say) at a higher altitude? 122 mph at (say) 10,000 or even 15,000 feet is much more creditable than at sea level, which is where bare maximum speed figures are generally ussumed to be taken from.)
3. "Expendable" naval scouts. This was actually a Royal Navy practice adopted (or at least experimented with) by various other navies. Later small seaplanes were of course designed for this service. Landplane "scouts" used by the British included Sopwith Pup and Camel single seaters. If they were released too far from land to make landfall, they were expected to return to the mothership and ditch nearby so the crew (who were most definitely weren't "expendable") could be picked up. The aircraft concerned were fitted with hydrovanes and flotation devices to facilitate ditching, and enable salvage - although the airframes were often write-offs the engines (aeroengines of the period typically cost a good deal more than the airframes they were mounted in!) were usually OK after a good overhaul. According to other sources this was NOT tried in the US Navy until after the war - and the experiments involved Hanriots rather than Nieuports. Not that this is totally incompatible with your account, just we need to know where you found it!
4. All our sources seem to imply that the American "pursuit" pilots were quite keen to get SPADS to replace their Nieuports - the idea that anyone regarded it as a "tragedy", but that this has remained unknown ever after, seems on the face of it something that we'd really want to get a very good reference for, at least.
5. "Flying carefully" could indeed be an answer to structural weakness - but it was not a popular one. Our sources imply that the answer that was "speedily found" involved improved structural attachment of the wing fabric.
It's such a beautiful little aeroplane I'm sure we'd love for it to have been better than people think it was. Sorry if I seem cynical or negative, just we do need to know (and show) where we're getting our information from. -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 23:58, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
My understanding has always been that the AEF were the ones with the shortage of Vickers guns (in fact of machine guns in general) - due to muddles in the ordering of equipment - and that the (French) manufacturer of the N.28 supplied the aircraft without guns because that's how they did it, the presumption being that the Americans use guns from their own stocks. The reworded sentence seems to imply that the Vickers Gun shortage was a general one that affected Nieuport, so that they didn't have any to supply. This may well be what Treadwell says, but Treadwell is a VERY iffy author, in fact I wouldn't trust him on anything, since I caught him (very clumsily) plagarising Wikipedia! A small point, but we'd better get it right if we can. Think I may be able to work round this one, with good cites, but not now, it's too late. -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 16:02, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
@Buzzsaw Just about everything in one of my edits went, apparently due to this cause - I have reinstated my edits, being careful to preserve yours - if I have inadvertently trodden on your toes - please excuse. -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 16:58, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
Cheesman actually says "Steps were taken to strengthen the wing-fabric of the type 28 and a satisfactory solution had been evolved by July 1918". Our info in this article was actually based on this before the current flurry. This is VERY much more likely than the idea that they'd worked out everything was fine provided you "flew carefully".
We've been discounting this source because it's old, and doesn't go into that much detail - but so far as it goes its generally rather reliable. Frankly I'd be more inclined to accept this than the idea that the solution was "let's fly carefully, fellows". If the wing problem was just a nasty memory by June 1918 because they'd restitched the fabric or something, then it does make sense of the fact(?) that the pilots who'd had the things for a while were glad to see the back of them, while those that had just had them a short while didn't want to change.
Either way - we probably need a better source - what exactly does Guttman say, for instance? -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 23:19, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
If the Morane A-1 is included in the "Next generation of French fighters" then this probably should also include the N.28! From my own reading of Davilla (which I own) both the Morane and the Nieuport were ordered into production at about the same time, but both (from the French point of view) were destined for the advanced training units. In the event the Morane was trialed briefly at the front by a couple of operational squadrons but DID end up as a trainer, and the 28 went to the Americans while they were waiting for their SPADS. I have let the reference to the Morane stand for a moment, but we need to think about it. Davilla is actually very sketchy when it comes to the 28 - understandable as the work is about FRENCH fighters, and the 28 is (sort of) American. The impression after the most recent edits was that the 28 didn't go into production - it did of course, or the Americans wouldn't have been able to purchase any!). It would have joined the similarly engined Moranes in the advanced trainer role had there been enough spare SPADS for the Yanks to have theirs from the word go.
I also moved the stuff about the prototypes of the 28 that were fitted with things like monocoque fuselages and stationary engines (thus giving rise to the 29) up into the section with the other prototypes of the "28 proper". The 28A is a later development altogether, and a purely American one. I don't think (off-hand - not going to check now) that Davilla even mentions it. -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 21:20, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
1. Our sources actually give a strong impression that the total number of 28s ordered did NOT include the order for 28As (many of which were cancelled anyway) - I nearly put this in, in fact, but I can't find anything specific enough in the sources. I agree that almost 300 aircraft is [probably far more than the total that was written off, one way or the other, on war service - but in the famous "million dollar bonfire" just after the war a great many aircraft in US service were destroyed rather than bother with "repatriation" - a relatively small number of 28s were "pulled from the flames" to go "home" - we can't even be totally sure that all these were 28As, although this seems logical the military mind is sometimes ('nuff said). The 28A was specifically redesigned to meet complaints about the earlier model, not necessarily as replacements. I agree this is a minor matter (why I wanted it to go into a footnote - and I can't get footnotes to work here either!!)
2. "Re-interpreting" a cited source is very fraught - changing the sense of sourced material is, as I said in my last edit summary, just not on, unless the cite is at least removed - or (much better) replaced with another cite that agrees with the new sense. AND it needs (as should be obvious) to be a better source. The Hamady book is by far the most comprehensive text on the specific subject - it is recent - and frankly I believe it is overall probably more reliable than throw-away lines from works that touch on the 28 rather than treating it at length. "Some" in this context is also VERY ambiguous - do we intend an implication that there was controversy, even in the squadrons where they were quite pleased to see the back of aircraft that had shown a definite tendency to break up in the air and burst into flames on landing? Or are we just saying we have records that "some" complained and others didn't (pretty meaningless, surely).
-- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 08:27, 28 February 2016 (UTC) [Still working on this - if you're there - hold off if possible until I'm done!]
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Were the guns offset because the fuselage was so narrow? So say several source (apologies to the author of Beowulf), but I think it was more likely a result of the geometry of the synchronisation gear. The 28A, which would have used the American Nelson gear, had the guns mounted more conventionally, side be side. Thinking of changing this (or at least adding a note, but need to have my references right or I'll get shot down in flames! WWIReferences ( talk) 00:03, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
Bowers (not to mention some of our other older sources) have become very dated. In fact Bowers is a thin pamphlet (one of the weakest of the early "profile" series) - at best it compares very poorly with Hamady (for example), which is a meticulously researched 276 page book, published in 2008. I mention this in mitigation of my recent rather severe editing of this article. As mentioned in the edit summary - a good many recent "Bowers-inspired" edits duplicated (or are flatly contradicted by) Hamady or other late sources - some others fail "due-weight", one or two are two I have tried hard to confirm by a later source without success and must remain doubtful. There is a sensible size for an encyclopedia article about an aeroplane - especially a rather minor type - and this one pushes it already.
Having said this - I have tried very hard to include any genuine "added details" from the obviously painstaking and well-meant edits that brought this on - especially in cases where I was able to confirm the information in a later source. Many things I have reworded or reorganised rather than deleting - so that the new information is still there - if in different words, and in another place. I welcome comment, preferably here in the first instance, about anything that is no longer there that anyone feels should be reinstated. -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 22:31, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
If "flotation" looks right and "floatation" looks wrong then you're probably right.
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/84218/is-it-flotation-or-floatation
Although "floatation" is rare, if not strictly incorrect, in both standard and U.S. English it is apparently much more common in Scotland(!) think there is a strong case for keeping the "most usual" spelling - especially when it is not subject to a British/US difference, and the difference in use seems to be about 1:100. -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 06:42, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
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What about a section on Survivors and/or replicas? There is a replica in the National Museum of the USAF, another at the Army Aviation Museum. There is a flying replica at the Great War Flying Museum. Doubtless there are others.-- Plane nutz ( talk) 19:36, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
The idea of designing a new fighter in late 1917 with a single machine gun seems incredible - is there a reliable source that claims this? One gun was mounted off to one side because the top of the fuselage (and thus the gap between the centre section struts) was too narrow for both guns to be mounted in what was generally believed to be the best place (directly in front of the pilot's face). In the absense of any ability to mind read the designers, or, so far as I can tell, any contemporary documentation of this question I have just left it ambiguous - all production machines had provision for two guns (although some American pilots flew "28s" with a single gun, either because of a shortange of guns, or to wring a little extra performance out of the type - so lets just say that. It may well be that the very narrow gap between the top wing and the fuselage on at least one prototype was increased to facilitate the installation of at least one "directly sightable" gun - but since this was just one of several different wing arrangements that were experimented with during development I don't think we can assume this - nor would I trust a modern "glossy" aviation book that made the claim unless there were very strong reasons for doing so. -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 02:10, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
Small correction: 103rd Aero did not use the type, this is probably being confused with the 147th Aero which actually did. The 147the Aero Squadron was the 4th unit in the 1st Pursuit Group, which the other Nieuport 28 users were a part of (94th, 95th, and 27th Aero Squadrons). The 103rd Aero was the ex-Lafayette Escadrille and used SPAD's from what I recall, never using the Nieuport 28. -Scott S.
Additional detail like this is actually just what we can always use - but it really does need to be referenced. Could we have a reference or two? The following statements, in particular seem (at first blush anyway) to be highly unlikely and/or out of synch with "well known facts". (Yes I know, "well-known" doesn't always equal "correct", alas).
1. Later supplementary order (when was this placed? and was it cancelled at war's end?). All other sources say that the initial 300 or so were originally ordered by the French, who decided they didn't really want them after all, and passed virtually all of them to the Americans as an interim substitute for SPAD orders that could not at first be met due to engine shortages.
2. Performance. Published figures show respectable but far from outstanding (in fact pretty mediocre) speed and climb, especially when compared with other fighters in use in the second half of 1918. Published performance figures are NOT always right or complete - but do you have well-cited figures giving the higher rates of speed and climb implied in your revised text? (Or perhaps more complete figures showing that the maximum speed usually given was (say) at a higher altitude? 122 mph at (say) 10,000 or even 15,000 feet is much more creditable than at sea level, which is where bare maximum speed figures are generally ussumed to be taken from.)
3. "Expendable" naval scouts. This was actually a Royal Navy practice adopted (or at least experimented with) by various other navies. Later small seaplanes were of course designed for this service. Landplane "scouts" used by the British included Sopwith Pup and Camel single seaters. If they were released too far from land to make landfall, they were expected to return to the mothership and ditch nearby so the crew (who were most definitely weren't "expendable") could be picked up. The aircraft concerned were fitted with hydrovanes and flotation devices to facilitate ditching, and enable salvage - although the airframes were often write-offs the engines (aeroengines of the period typically cost a good deal more than the airframes they were mounted in!) were usually OK after a good overhaul. According to other sources this was NOT tried in the US Navy until after the war - and the experiments involved Hanriots rather than Nieuports. Not that this is totally incompatible with your account, just we need to know where you found it!
4. All our sources seem to imply that the American "pursuit" pilots were quite keen to get SPADS to replace their Nieuports - the idea that anyone regarded it as a "tragedy", but that this has remained unknown ever after, seems on the face of it something that we'd really want to get a very good reference for, at least.
5. "Flying carefully" could indeed be an answer to structural weakness - but it was not a popular one. Our sources imply that the answer that was "speedily found" involved improved structural attachment of the wing fabric.
It's such a beautiful little aeroplane I'm sure we'd love for it to have been better than people think it was. Sorry if I seem cynical or negative, just we do need to know (and show) where we're getting our information from. -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 23:58, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
My understanding has always been that the AEF were the ones with the shortage of Vickers guns (in fact of machine guns in general) - due to muddles in the ordering of equipment - and that the (French) manufacturer of the N.28 supplied the aircraft without guns because that's how they did it, the presumption being that the Americans use guns from their own stocks. The reworded sentence seems to imply that the Vickers Gun shortage was a general one that affected Nieuport, so that they didn't have any to supply. This may well be what Treadwell says, but Treadwell is a VERY iffy author, in fact I wouldn't trust him on anything, since I caught him (very clumsily) plagarising Wikipedia! A small point, but we'd better get it right if we can. Think I may be able to work round this one, with good cites, but not now, it's too late. -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 16:02, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
@Buzzsaw Just about everything in one of my edits went, apparently due to this cause - I have reinstated my edits, being careful to preserve yours - if I have inadvertently trodden on your toes - please excuse. -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 16:58, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
Cheesman actually says "Steps were taken to strengthen the wing-fabric of the type 28 and a satisfactory solution had been evolved by July 1918". Our info in this article was actually based on this before the current flurry. This is VERY much more likely than the idea that they'd worked out everything was fine provided you "flew carefully".
We've been discounting this source because it's old, and doesn't go into that much detail - but so far as it goes its generally rather reliable. Frankly I'd be more inclined to accept this than the idea that the solution was "let's fly carefully, fellows". If the wing problem was just a nasty memory by June 1918 because they'd restitched the fabric or something, then it does make sense of the fact(?) that the pilots who'd had the things for a while were glad to see the back of them, while those that had just had them a short while didn't want to change.
Either way - we probably need a better source - what exactly does Guttman say, for instance? -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 23:19, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
If the Morane A-1 is included in the "Next generation of French fighters" then this probably should also include the N.28! From my own reading of Davilla (which I own) both the Morane and the Nieuport were ordered into production at about the same time, but both (from the French point of view) were destined for the advanced training units. In the event the Morane was trialed briefly at the front by a couple of operational squadrons but DID end up as a trainer, and the 28 went to the Americans while they were waiting for their SPADS. I have let the reference to the Morane stand for a moment, but we need to think about it. Davilla is actually very sketchy when it comes to the 28 - understandable as the work is about FRENCH fighters, and the 28 is (sort of) American. The impression after the most recent edits was that the 28 didn't go into production - it did of course, or the Americans wouldn't have been able to purchase any!). It would have joined the similarly engined Moranes in the advanced trainer role had there been enough spare SPADS for the Yanks to have theirs from the word go.
I also moved the stuff about the prototypes of the 28 that were fitted with things like monocoque fuselages and stationary engines (thus giving rise to the 29) up into the section with the other prototypes of the "28 proper". The 28A is a later development altogether, and a purely American one. I don't think (off-hand - not going to check now) that Davilla even mentions it. -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 21:20, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
1. Our sources actually give a strong impression that the total number of 28s ordered did NOT include the order for 28As (many of which were cancelled anyway) - I nearly put this in, in fact, but I can't find anything specific enough in the sources. I agree that almost 300 aircraft is [probably far more than the total that was written off, one way or the other, on war service - but in the famous "million dollar bonfire" just after the war a great many aircraft in US service were destroyed rather than bother with "repatriation" - a relatively small number of 28s were "pulled from the flames" to go "home" - we can't even be totally sure that all these were 28As, although this seems logical the military mind is sometimes ('nuff said). The 28A was specifically redesigned to meet complaints about the earlier model, not necessarily as replacements. I agree this is a minor matter (why I wanted it to go into a footnote - and I can't get footnotes to work here either!!)
2. "Re-interpreting" a cited source is very fraught - changing the sense of sourced material is, as I said in my last edit summary, just not on, unless the cite is at least removed - or (much better) replaced with another cite that agrees with the new sense. AND it needs (as should be obvious) to be a better source. The Hamady book is by far the most comprehensive text on the specific subject - it is recent - and frankly I believe it is overall probably more reliable than throw-away lines from works that touch on the 28 rather than treating it at length. "Some" in this context is also VERY ambiguous - do we intend an implication that there was controversy, even in the squadrons where they were quite pleased to see the back of aircraft that had shown a definite tendency to break up in the air and burst into flames on landing? Or are we just saying we have records that "some" complained and others didn't (pretty meaningless, surely).
-- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 08:27, 28 February 2016 (UTC) [Still working on this - if you're there - hold off if possible until I'm done!]
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Were the guns offset because the fuselage was so narrow? So say several source (apologies to the author of Beowulf), but I think it was more likely a result of the geometry of the synchronisation gear. The 28A, which would have used the American Nelson gear, had the guns mounted more conventionally, side be side. Thinking of changing this (or at least adding a note, but need to have my references right or I'll get shot down in flames! WWIReferences ( talk) 00:03, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
Bowers (not to mention some of our other older sources) have become very dated. In fact Bowers is a thin pamphlet (one of the weakest of the early "profile" series) - at best it compares very poorly with Hamady (for example), which is a meticulously researched 276 page book, published in 2008. I mention this in mitigation of my recent rather severe editing of this article. As mentioned in the edit summary - a good many recent "Bowers-inspired" edits duplicated (or are flatly contradicted by) Hamady or other late sources - some others fail "due-weight", one or two are two I have tried hard to confirm by a later source without success and must remain doubtful. There is a sensible size for an encyclopedia article about an aeroplane - especially a rather minor type - and this one pushes it already.
Having said this - I have tried very hard to include any genuine "added details" from the obviously painstaking and well-meant edits that brought this on - especially in cases where I was able to confirm the information in a later source. Many things I have reworded or reorganised rather than deleting - so that the new information is still there - if in different words, and in another place. I welcome comment, preferably here in the first instance, about anything that is no longer there that anyone feels should be reinstated. -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 22:31, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
If "flotation" looks right and "floatation" looks wrong then you're probably right.
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/84218/is-it-flotation-or-floatation
Although "floatation" is rare, if not strictly incorrect, in both standard and U.S. English it is apparently much more common in Scotland(!) think there is a strong case for keeping the "most usual" spelling - especially when it is not subject to a British/US difference, and the difference in use seems to be about 1:100. -- Soundofmusicals ( talk) 06:42, 31 July 2018 (UTC)