pilots in ww1 had just a 70 percent survival rate, this includes balloon operators, many pilots lacked proper parachutes and had they crashed, lost control of their planes, or flat span , they would almost always be killed. though all of these aviators are not alive to this day, they still had many stories to tell. this depiction shows 3 aircraft, one british sopwith camel, an albatross d.iii (chasing the sopwith), and a flaming pfalz d.iiia . the royal flying corps serviced shy of 5,000 sopwith camels starting in 1917. the sopwith camel was one of the most agile aircraft of the first world war scoring the most kills out of any other plane. regardless of this fact , the sopwith camel was a very dangerous aircraft to fly, although it was extremely maneuverable it killed almost as many pilots during training than it did during war, 90 percent of the planes center of gravity was located forward to the fuelselage making the plane nose up easily, if the pilot were to pull on the stick to hard this would cause the plane to spiral into an uncontrollable flat spin and crash. the sopwith camel was also unstable at most speeds so only the most skilled airman would be able to fly the sopwith camel well. the sopwith camel would also tend to always turn slightly to the right without correction, the sopwith camel could turn almost half as tight in a right hand turn due to its counter clock wise rotary engine. the albatross d.iii however was a much more stable plane, yet not as agile as the sopwith it was still able to sustain turns and corner fairly well making it an even match if the pilots are similar in skill level.
