Talk:SPAD S.XIII

Specifications

I have sources quoting for the maximum speed of the SPAD 13 and i'm going to add them as soon as possible. I say that because some smart guy reverted my change, so to let him know. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.27.38.46 (talk) 15:01, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

As well as the sources already cited, J.M. Bruce's The Aeroplanes of the Royal Flying Corps (Military Wing). London:Putnam, 1982. ISBN 0 370 30084 x and William Green and Gordon Swanborough's The Complete Book of Fighters. New York:Smithmark 1994 agree on the 218 km/h figure at 2000 m - what are your sources?Nigel Ish (talk) 15:14, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

My encyclopedic sources are World Encyclopedia of military Aircraft by enzo angelucci, History of aviation by Editions ATLAS and Aerospace publishing LTD By the way what do you mean with WP:RSs?

Also you say that your sources agree with 218kmh at 2000m? Then it only confirms my number because speed is higher at sea level, slower the higher you get, you probably know that?

By the way one of your sources makes me think your numbers come from an RFC Spad. British spad were said by several sources to be lower quality built than the french, the sources are the same as above, but it is also described in the very article.

What i want to say is that an RFC SPAD isn't the best example to talk about this aircraft. RFC Spads built were 200, French SPADs were over 8000 built.

Angelucci quotes his performance figures (at 2000 m) for an aircraft with a 235 hp engine, while the current specs are for the 220 hp engine, which probably explains the difference - we should be consistant on what version of SPAD.XIII we are quoting the specs for and stick with it (i.e. a 200, 220 or 235 hp engine). The British built SPADs were SPAD.VIIs, not SPAD XIIIs, with all the RFC's SPAD XIIIs being built in France (mainly by Kellner), so the low standard of the British-built SPADs isn't relevant. Bruce states that the SPAD.XIII never went to Martlesham Heath for testing so the specifications are probably derived from French testing.

WP:RS refers to wikipedias policy on reliable sources - the two websites that you cited probably don't count as reliable sources, although Angelucci and the History of aviation magazine do.Nigel Ish (talk) 16:00, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

It's funny you consider Theaerodrome as "non reliable". This site is the haven of passionated and specialists about WW1 who are known for datacrossing from several books and encyclopedias, and books of people who flown aircraft. I would trust more this site than a single book by Bruce, even more if said Bruce didn't get his numbers from flying tests as you just admitted.

However theaerodrome data is for a 235HP so let's drop the argument. But theaerodrome is being quoted in other articles like the Pup or SE5. If you consider it as non reliable then we should erase it from ALL articles, don't you think?

I haven't access to my encyclopedias until next week so let's postpone the discussion.

Interestingly enough, other specifications quoted, such as empty weight, climb rates, celing etc do not match those given in Bruce.Nigel Ish (talk) 16:45, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

The following was written while you poeple were discussing things - some of what I said repeats points already raised by Nigel !!!

Editing performance figures, especially when your sources are patently second rate so far as reliability is concerned, and are full of the most pathetic "howlers" (I'm afraid this is the case for at least one of the sources you name)- and the figures in place are well referenced by named (and highly reputed) aviation historians is always a little fraught. In any case as I mentioned in my edit summary the difference is pretty trivial. Quoted performance figures are at best a bit of an approximation - there are just so many variables that can affect the exact speed and climb of a given aircraft at a given time. Different manufacturers (several different manufacturers built SPAD S.XIIs - although none of them were British - you're mixing this up with the earlier S.VII) had different levels of workmanship - different examples of the same engine had different power outputs etc.. SPAD pilots had a marked preference for their mounts to be "made by SPAD" and powered by engines "made by Hispano-Suiza". There was a reason for this! Even the same aeroplane with the same load could perform differently on different flights on the same day (!) For example, the recorded performances (especially climb to hight) of the competitors at the German fighter competitions in 1918, often differ substantially - a particular aircraft may well take a full ten minutes extra to get to 4000m on a second climb. In fact they usually did several tests and averaged them. If one source gives a certain figure and another gives a broadly similar one then at best you are not correcting a major error.

Other reasons for differing published performance figures are "conversion error" French and German figures for instance are metric, whereas the figures in English language sources tend to be in "Imperial" (what they used to use in Britain - similar but NOT identical isome cases to U.S. measures). A translation of (say) a French, German or Italian book (particularly when both the original book, and the translation are second rate) will often be VERY lax in the way metres are converted to feet or kilograms to pounds.

Speed and climb tests done on captured aircraft (often slightly damaged, and/or tuned for fuel of a different octane value) are often a bit pessimistic. Manufactureers figures are sometimes grossly optomistic.

A good (properly authored, as opposed to thrown together) source will have taken all these things into account - and will have tried very hard to get the most reliable possible numbers.

If you change referenced information it is very much up to you to justify your changes if they are challenged. Having an edit you have made in good faith reverted can be annoying - but remember the editors of articles like this are mostly enthusiasts for the subject, and some of them have been so for many years. --Soundofmusicals (talk) 16:54, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually I pretty much agree with Nigel supposed sources saying a 220HP SPAD had a max speed of 135mph AT 2000 METERS HIGH! This only means my figure is right, because at sea-level this speed would be around 140mph which is what most of my sources quote.

The problem is that before my edit, the speed wasn't detailed to be at 2000m so most people would think it was at sea-level, making it seem slower than it should be. Why wasn't it specified in the first place?

About the conversion thingy. I hope you are not trying to discredit metric sources there. My sources are in metric numbers, include compareason of ALL aircraft in the same unit, as such your argument is irrelevant there. There aren't some of them in imperial and other in metric. 135mph isn't 138mph just like 218 kmh isn't 222 kmh. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.27.38.46 (talk) 17:13, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

"when your sources are patently second rate so far as reliability is concerned, and are full of the most pathetic "howlers" (I'm afraid this is the case for at least one of the sources you name)-"

" but remember the editors of articles like this are mostly enthusiasts for the subject, and some of them have been so for many years"

But such enthusiasts could be as much "pathetic howlers", don't you agree? ;). Let's forget the name calling if you want to have some credibility in being neutral.

" In any case as I mentioned in my edit summary the difference is pretty trivial"

And as i mentioned in my edit summary, if the difference is pretty trivial then don't change it. But you reverted it, so you dont consider it so much "trivial". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.27.38.46 (talk) 18:20, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm very suspicious about that climb rate of 384 fpm (2 m/s); it seems unreasonably low for an aircraft with a service ceiling as high as 21,800 feet. (Since the climb rate is unqualified, one has to assume it's supposed to be a sea-level climb rate.) Also, it looks like it was converted from the low-precision figure of 2 m/s to the much higher-precision one of 384 fpm, which would mean the latter figure has false precision.

As for sources on specifications, for information like this I personally distrust catch-all sources like the general book on fighter aircraft apparently cited here. I would much prefer a book or article about the specific type. --Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 22:34, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

The climb rate has probably been converted from a time to heighti.e. x minutes to 10,000 ft or something similar, as that is the way climb performace is normally quoted for WW1 types - but it does seem a little low.Nigel Ish (talk) 22:51, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Sopwith Dolphin

Please Mr (Ms?) PIPE, I'm really not out to get you! BUT sooner or later one has to consider how relevant a fact is to an article. 23 squadron RAF received a few SPAD S.XIIIs while they were in the process of converting from the SPAD S.VII to the Sopwith Dolphin. Now in an article on 23 squadron it may well be notable that this caused fewer problems than the operation of three types at once might have because after all the S.XIII and the Dolphin mk.1 used the same engine. On the other hand this is a very small chapter in the history of the S.XIII, which was never "officially" an RAF fighter. The relevance of the Dolphin and the S.XIII both using 200 hp (geared) Hispano-Suiza engines (after all, so did several other types) is so marginal in this article it does no more than render the text harder to follow. A footnote perhaps? One always hesitates to revert good-faith edits made by knowlegeable, well-meant editors intent on nothing more than improving articles, but not to the extent of allowing the constant cramming in of further detail into every sentence into which it can be crammed. --Soundofmusicals (talk) 11:41, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Sadly - you're still at it! - in this case the Halberstadt D.II's having a single gun. Sorry old man, since I generally speaking have a lot of respect for your erudition and sincerity, but so what? Guynemer (like some contemporaries among allied airmen) seems sometimes to have called the Albatros "D" types (and perhaps even the similar Rolands), "Halberstadts" - but of course this is even less relevant - TO THIS ARTICLE. --Soundofmusicals (talk) 23:33, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Agree that the reference (and dubious unsubstantiated claim) are of any relevance whatsoever for an aircraft that was out of service before the S.XIII even flew, and the Dolphin belongs only in the similar section if at all.NiD.29 01:13, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Apologies for causing confusion by not giving my latest remarks here their own heading - just that when I came to add an "extended edit summary" for cutting the Halberstadt bit I noticed that exactly the same thing had been done (by the same editor) almost exactly three years ago! The Sopwith Dolphin reference is of course now ancient history - my "keep it relevant" remark on the other hand is (alas) timeless. The Halberstadt gets into it because of Guynemer's remark (quoted here) about the capabilities of the type (actually superseded at the time, as NiD.29 remarks). We can speculate (on this talk page, but NOT in this or any other Wiki article) that he actually meant the Albatros and/or Roland "D" types which were still around on the French front at the time. Airmen are often given to imprecise and generic identifications of their enemies of this kind. In any case, nothing can make the edit I reverted relevant, unfortunately. --Soundofmusicals (talk) 02:30, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:SPAD S.XIII/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Needs infobox, references, and standard WP:Air/PC subheadings. Karl Dickman talk 01:48, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Last edited at 01:48, 9 January 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 05:11, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

What's up? Typo?

Sorry to barge in guys, I do help maintain a few pages but I don't do corrections on pages I'm not familiar with. Under the first header Design and development, it says "SPAD 12". Since English is not my native tongue, is this some kind of comparison or it's just missing an " I ". HF Netweezurd (talk) 02:13, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

The SPAD S.XII is correct. Similar but different aircraft armed with a cannon. I have moved your comment to the correct place (the bottom, as it is a new topic). --Soundofmusicals (talk) 09:33, 30 October 2017 (UTC)