WW1 aircraft

nuuumannn · Nov 21, 2017

Another was the Sopwith Pup, which had a big impact on naval aviation. Pups carried out take offs from platforms around 15 feet long over gun turrets and off seaplane tenders' decks, not to forget the very first landing on an aircraft carrier's deck. Pups equipped the very first aircraft carrier air group, 'F' Squadron, HMS Furious' air component, headed by Sqn Cdr Edwin Dunning, who carried out the afforementioned deck landing. Pups were also expended in experiments to find the best way of restraining an aeroplane after landing aboard a carrier, aboard Argus and Furious.

Also, the Sopwith T.1 Cuckoo. The very first landplane (with wheels, as opposed to seaplane with floats) to enter service that was designed specifically to operate from aboard a ship, the first aircraft carrier based torpedo bomber, which equipped the very first aircraft carrier based torpedo squadron, 185 Sqn, RAF, formed in October 1918 for operations aboard HMS Argus. Cuckoos were also exported to Japan and were the IJN's first torpedoplanes, which operated aboard Japan's first carrier IJNS Hosho.

Wurger · Nov 21, 2017

Avro 504 ....

Elvis · Nov 21, 2017

nuuumannn said:
Another was the Sopwith Pup, which had a big impact on naval aviation. Pups carried out take offs from platforms around 15 feet long over gun turrets and off seaplane tenders' decks, not to forget the very first landing on an aircraft carrier's deck. Pups equipped the very first aircraft carrier air group, 'F' Squadron, HMS Furious' air component, headed by Sqn Cdr Edwin Dunning, who carried out the afforementioned deck landing. Pups were also expended in experiments to find the best way of restraining an aeroplane after landing aboard a carrier, aboard Argus and Furious.

View attachment 472802

Also, the Sopwith T.1 Cuckoo. The very first landplane (with wheels, as opposed to seaplane with floats) to enter service that was designed specifically to operate from aboard a ship, the first aircraft carrier based torpedo bomber, which equipped the very first aircraft carrier based torpedo squadron, 185 Sqn, RAF, formed in October 1918 for operations aboard HMS Argus. Cuckoos were also exported to Japan and were the IJN's first torpedoplanes, which operated aboard Japan's first carrier IJNS Hosho.

View attachment 472801

Nice write-up Nuuumann, but all Sopwith's owe a debt to the 11/2 strutter...

(photo courtesy of Wikimedia)

It was the design type that all the others were based on.

Dean

Wurger · Nov 21, 2017

Avro 504K

Hanriot HD-1

nuuumannn · Nov 23, 2017

Elvis said:
Nice write-up Nuuumann, but all Sopwith's owe a debt to the 11/2 strutter

Not true, Elvis; before the Strutter was the Tabloid - it was the aeroplane that changed the firm's fortunes and set a benchmark in manufacture for the time. Not surprising that all share the same dna, Hawker, Sigrist and Sopwith himself made a formidable team.

Wurger · Nov 23, 2017

Hanriot HD-1 ....

Gnomey · Nov 23, 2017

Good shots!

nuuumannn · Nov 23, 2017

Elvis said:
It was the design type that all the others were based on. Dean

Sorry, Dean, just to clarify Sopwith's lineage in terms of airframe development.

The Strutter came from Sopwith's desire to produce a decent tractor biplane, which began with the Three Seater and via various floatplane designs (Circuit Seaplane et al) came to the 807, which was an underpowered two-seater floatplane that went to war aboard the seaplane carrier HMS Ark Royal during the Dardanelles campaign. Not a great performer, the 807 shared the same structure as the land plane Two-Seater, which was nicknamed the 'Spinning Jenny' (not ot be confused with the Curtiss JN4). This was not a great design and was used for air defence duties early in the war, being pretty much useless and nicknamed as such because of its propensity to suddenly enter a spin without provocation. Oddly, the 807, despite being fitted with floats had a higher speed than the Two-Seater. From this came a two-seater one-off design nicknamed 'Sigrist's Bus', after designer Freddie Sigrist, and it was from this that the Strutter came. I vaguely remember reading somewhere that Sigrist's Bus came from a plan drawing of an 807 on the floor of a factory or such like and the new aeroplane was built from that profile, with a new fuselage and wings.

The Sopwith single seaters all came from the Tabloid, which was originally a two-seater, but an RFC order in 1914 had the design become a single seater. From the Tabloid came two separate developments, Hawker's 'Runabout' and the Schneider seaplane. The former became the Pup, essentially, with little modification and the latter, based on the 1914 Schneider Trophy winning Tabloid became the basis for the Baby single seat seaplane. It was a requirement for a replacement for this that produced a single seater with two machine guns mounted in a hump in front of the cockpit. Guess what that led to, but without floats? Sopwith's most famous and mass produced aeroplane, the Camel. The Pup name came from William Sefton Branker, controller of aircraft procurement within the RFC, who saw Hawker's single seat runabout next to the third Strutter at Brooklands in early 1916 and proclaimed 'Good God Man! Your Strutter has had a Pup!' The name stuck. After the Pup came the Triplane and so on.

This isn't to belittle the excellence of the Strutter, not at all, but to clarify that even it had its beginnings and that much of Sopwith's subsequent aeroplane design was owed to the Tabloid. It was its standard of manufacture and structural neatness that characterised future Sopwith aeroplanes.

parsifal · Nov 23, 2017

man there are some good shots there. frustrates the heck out of me that our modellers don't want to build these. they are a challenge, but this whole era to me is intensely interesting.