One of the legends clinging to the Sopwith Camel is that it was so reluctant to turn 90 degrees to the right that pilots preferred making a 270 to the left. Now, this is being said about the airplane that is widely regarded as the premier dogfighter of World War I. You have to wonder whether such roundabout tactics were practical when you had a Fokker on your tail.
The cause of this alleged misbehavior was the Camel’s rotary engine. The rotary — not the Mazda or Wankel rotary but the quite distinct type that was used on most of the fighters of World War I — reminds me of those light-bulb-changing jokes in which one person of the nationality to be denigrated climbs the ladder to insert the bulb and then several others turn the ladder. At rest, the rotary looks like any air-cooled radial; in operation, it becomes a blur because the crankshaft stands still and the entire engine — crankcase, cylinders, pistons and all — spins around it.
