Originally posted by J_A_B
"Any Nieuports?"
Some of our pilots (including Rickenbacker) were flying Nieuports prior to being re-equipped with SPADs. I believe they were Nieuport 11's but they may have been a later model. The Nieuports were universally despised as flimsy and unreliable.
J_A_B
Originally, the USAS in WWI used SPAD VII's, Nieuport 28's, Sopwith Camels and SE.5's. SPAD XIII's (which became the standard fighter in USAS service) were in short supply as the French initially had difficulty building enough to equip their own squadrons and the other allied air forces that used them. Only a handful of squadrons flew the SPAD VII, Camels and SE.5's - the majority were equipped with Nieuport 28's until they were replaced by SPAD XIII's.
All the Nieuports were generally very maneuverable air-craft (classic turn-fighters) that suffered from weak wings. However, they were the favourite of many Allied aces and the British thought highly of them and they were literally on the sharp end of the RFC during Bloody April - being on the sharp end against Richthofen's Jasta and flying more sorties than other RFC types, they also took the lion's share of the losses but they were also the planes which scored the lion's share of the kills in the RFC in this period.
The Germans also thought highly of them, enough so that they ordered their aircraft manufacturers to copy them. The Siemens-Schuckert D. I was a direct copy of the Nieuport 11 but with a more powerful engine. However, it was a disappointment since it used a metal frame as opposed to a wooden frame (wood from trees native to Germany were ill-suited for aircraft construction) which weighed it down - by the time the Siemens entered service, it was already obsolete. The "V" strut construction of the early Nieuports was copied in the Albatros D. III and Albatros D. V - this improved the downward visibility of those aircraft compared the parallel strutted D. II but also resulted in weak wings which the planes tended to shed in steep dives (as in the Nieuport).
Basically, it wasn't despised - you just couldn't dive hard with it and expect to survive. They were all classic turn 'n burn fighters. They weren't boom and zoomers like the S.E. 5's and SPAD's.
The only Americans that flew the earlier Nieuports (Nieuport 11 and onwards) with the volunteers who flew in the Escadrille Lafayette and in the RFC. The Escadrille Lafayette later became the 103rd USAS squadron and flew SPAD VII's.
