Airco (pre de Havilland) DH 5

Airco DH.5:

• single-seat, single bay biplane fighter aircraft, with back-stagger of the wings, positioning the pilot directly under the upper wing leading edge.
• powered by 110 HP Le Rhone rotary (radial) engine
• single fixed Vickers .303 machine gun synchroed to the prop
• because Airco concentrated on getting the DH.4 bomber into production, by the time the DH.5 was ready to enter service it already had inferior performance to the older Sopwith Pup. Several Nieuport models up to the 17 and the newly released Sopwith Camel and R.A.F. SE5 were even farther ahead in their performance. Squadrons getting the DH.5 were NOT happy about it.
• while it was manoeuvrable, performance rapidly dropped off over 10,000 ft, and it lost altitude quickly in combat. The position of the upper wing resulted in an unfortunate blind spot above and to the rear which was the very direction from which a single-seater would generally be attacked from.
• all in all, a failure of a fighter in other than the secondary fronts (Italy, Egypt & Mesopotamia (Iraq)).

General characteristics

• Crew: One
• Length: 22 ft 0 in (6.71 m)
• Wingspan: 25 ft 8 in (7.82 m)
• Height: 9 ft 1/2 in (2.781 m)
• Wing area: 212.1 sq ft (19.70 m2)
• Empty weight: 1,010 lb (458 kg)
• Gross weight: 1,492 lb (677 kg)
• Fuel capacity: 26 imp gal (31 US gal; 120 L)
• Powerplant: 1 × Le Rhone 9J nine-cylinder radial engine, 110 hp (82 kW)
• Propellers: 2-bladed wood fixed pitch propeller, 8 ft 6 in (2.59 m) diameter

Performance

• Maximum speed: 102 mph (164 km/h, 89 kn) at 10,000 ft (3,000 m)
• Endurance: 2 hr 45 min
• Service ceiling: 16,000 ft (4,900 m) (inferior performance ov 10,000 ft.)
• Time to altitude:
  • 12 min 25 s to 10,000 ft (3,000 m)
  • 27 min 30 s to 15,000 ft (4,600 m)

Armament

• Guns: 1 × 0.303 in (7.7 mm) Vickers machine gun
• Bombs: racks for four 25 lb (11 kg) bombs under fuselage