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Aviation History
1956
1956 - 1390.PDF
A standard production V/2-Strutter with Scarff No. 2 ring mounting over the rear cockpit. THE SOPWITH U-STRUTTER HISTORIC MILITARY AIRCRAFT No. 14 PART I By J. M. BRUCE, M.A. FORTY summers ago, in the dawn of that Saturday whichwas the first day of July 1916, a river valley in France laysoftly shrouded in mist; mist which was soon dispersed by the sun to reveal the promise of a perfect summer day. But therewas no peace in the Somme Valley that morning. Europe was at war, and for seven days the river had been a mute witness of aceaseless, intense artillery bombardment of the German defences along the entire British front and the French front north and southof the river. At 6.25 a.m. on that first of July the bombardment swelled tohurricane intensity. Cecil Lewis, one of the R.F.C. pilots who were flying above the Somme that morning, was to write in lateryears:— "It was the greatest bombardment of the war, the greatest inthe history of the world. ... It was now a continuous vibration, as if Wotan, in some paroxysm of rage, were using the hollow worldas a drum and under his beat the crust of it was shaking. Nothing could live under that rain of splintering steel."After which it comes as something of an anti-climax to learn from the official history that "Aeroplanes of No. 70 Squadronwhich left to reconnoitre Cambrai at 6.0 a.m. were back on their aerodrome an hour and twenty minutes later. They had met withno opposition and reported no unusual movements." At 7.30 a.m., ten minutes after No. 70's patrol had landed, British troops ad-vanced against the enemy, and the vast agony of the Somme had begun.In the Order of Battle of the R.F.C. on July 1, 1916, the strength of No. 70 Sqn. is quoted as eight Sopwith two-seaters,but a following note states that four of these did not arrive until July 3. At that time there was no official system of nomenclaturefor aircraft—in fact, none was introduced until 1918—and the name "Sopwith two-seater" might have referred to any one ofseveral types of Sopwiths. But the sense of humour of the flying fraternity of the time ensured that that particular Sopwith two-seater had a name of its own; and it is certain that no aeroplane ever flew to war under a quainter style than did the SopwithH-Strutter. The H-Strutter was not by any means the first Sopwith two-seater, nor was it the first Sopwith two-seater to serve with the R.F.C. and R.N.A.S. A two-seat tractor biplane powered by a70 h.p. Gnome had appeared in 1912, and the following year saw the debut of the excellent aircraft, originally a three-seater andfitted with the 80 h.p. Gnome, which was ordered in small num- bers for Britain's infant flying services. The Service aircraftwere usually flown as two-seaters, and the type saw limited operational use in the early months of the war. Contemporary with the 80 h.p. Gn&me biplane was the firstBat Boat, and it was succeeded by the workmanlike side-by-side IN this latest article in his series of studies of World War I aircraftMr. Bruce deals with the Sopwith 11-Strutter, which was the first British military aircraft to go into service with a synchronized Vickersgun as standard equipment. The author wishes to record his indebted- ness to Mr. Bruce Robertson for much of the information—whichwill appear in a subsequent instalment—relating to serial numbers. two-seat biplane (100 h.p. Gnome Monosoupape) which wassupplied to the Admiralty with the official serial number 149. Mr. Winston Churchill had some dual instruction in thismachine. It crashed on March 25, 1914, when being flown by Lt. Spenser Grey. There followed the excellent seaplane (100 h.p. Green) inwhich Harry Hawker and H. Kauper made their gallant attempt to win the 1913 Daily Mail Round-Britain Contest and failedonly by sheer bad luck. Although the Sopwith Tabloid (80 h.p. Gnome) of November1913 originally appeared as a side-by-side two-seater, the pro- duction machines supplied to the R.F.C. and R.N.A.S. weresingle-seaters. The next Sopwith two-seater was a handsome tractor biplane powered by a 100 h.p. Gnome Monosoupape,which was built to participate in the 1914 Round-Britain Con- test. It first appeared with a wheel undercarriage, but still hada good performance when fitted with the float undercarriage for which it was designed.The outbreak of war prevented the Round-Britain race from taking place, but several examples of a development of the Sop-with seaplane were supplied to the Admiralty. In the R.N.A.S. the Service machines were officially known as Types 806 and807 and, although supplied only in small numbers, they saw operational use in several parts of the world. From theAdmiralty seaplane an equal-span landplane, also powered by the 100 h.p. Monosoupape, was developed. Two dozen weresupplied to the R.N.A.S. and were used as anti-Zeppelin patrol aircraft, but their performance was poor and their Service lifebrief. For an obvious (and occasionally disastrous) reason these Sopwith two-seaters were nicknamed "Spinning Jennies" by theirpilots. Apart from the few pusher Gun Buses converted from a batchof seaplanes originally ordered for Greece, the Spinning Jenny was the last Sopwith two-seat military landplane to appear be-fore the ll-Strutter, but at least five other two-seat tractor seaplanes* emerged from the Sopwith works between late 1913 * These were the big torpedo-carrier (200 h.p. Salmson), the sea- plane with 100 h.p. Anzani radial engine, the little-known machines vihich had the official serial numbers 137 and 138, and the big Admiralty Type 860 which had the 225 h.p. Sunbeam engine.
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