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Aviation History
1956
1956 - 1393.PDF
28 September 1956 545 section. A centre-section was provided for the lower wings: itwas quite wide and had no dihedral angle. The pilot sat directly under the upper mainplane, in whichposition he had a good forward and downward view, but could see little above and behind him. In many l^-Strutters a con-siderable area of the upper mainplane was covered with trans- parent material in order to improve the pilot's view. The mainfuel tank was installed immediately behind the pilot's seat. A small service tank was installed above and behind the engine,petrol being forced into it by a small wind-driven pump usually mounted on one of the cabane struts. A hand pump was alsofitted in the pilot's cockpit. As the position of the main tank made it impossible for the observer's cockpit to be placedimmediately behind the pilot, an appreciable distance separated the two. The Sopwith li-Strutter introduced Service pilots to theadjustable tailplane. Its incidence could be varied in flight by means of a handwheel in the pilot's cockpit. This innovationwas probably something of a necessity, for Captain Norman Clerget-powered single-seat bomber V/2-Strutter in French service. Two unlucky 1 'A-Strutters: (Top), R.N.A.S. machine, showing air brakes fully applied. (Lower picture), single-seat bomber of R.N.A.S. Fifth Wing, showing axis of air brakes and position of fuselage bomb cell. Macmillan has recorded that the li-Strutter was a very stableaeroplane which strongly resisted any sudden change of attitude, and that it required all of a pilot's strength and skill to put itinto a dive. The adjustable tailplane was probably used a good deal morethan the other aerodynamic novelty with which the l^-Strutter was fitted. Behind the rear spar of the lower centre section weretwo movable surfaces which were intended for use as air-brakes. It is possible that no other feature of any 1914-18 aircraft hasbeen so repeatedly misrepresented as the li-Strutter's air-brakes, for they have been described time and again, explicitly orimplicitly, as trailing-edge flaps of the lift-increasing kind. That is what they were not, for they moved upwards until they pre-sented flat surfaces squarely at right angles to the airflow. More- over, they were not hinged to the rear spar of the centre section;they were pivoted about a spanwise axis situated at about one- third of their chord, and were therefore aerodynamically balancedby the small portions which projected below the underside of the centre section. They were actuated by a lever in the pilot'scockpit. It may now seem amusing that it should have been thoughtnecessary to fit air-brakes to an aircraft with a landing speed as low as that of the H-Strutter, but no doubt they were fittedbecause the aircraft might be called upon to operate from very small fields. French notes on the 1?-Strutter advised the applica-tion of the air-brakes at a height of about 200ft of the approach. Singularly few references to their use have been recorded, how-ever, and it seems probable that most pilots preferred to land without their assistance. The landing speed was no more than35 m.p.h. It should, perhaps, be recorded that the l|-Strutter was notunique among British wartime aircraft in having air-brakes. The prototype D.H.I was equipped with them; and, following anexperimental installation in an R.E.5, air-brakes were a more or less standard fitting on R.E.7s. In these cases they were fittedto the fuselage, but the F.E.2A had a downward-moving flap on the trailing edge of its centre-section, and one F.E.2A hadan experimental installation—possibly the first ever made—of a braking parachute. Air-brakes similar to those of the lJ-Strutterwere fitted to the big Sopwith L.R.T.Tr. three-seat triplane of 1916. Up to the time of the H-Strutter's appearance, the Sopwithcompany had been almost exclusively Admiralty contractors: with the exception of a small number of Tabloids supplied to theR.F.C., the company's entire output of military aircraft had been delivered to the Admiralty. Thanks largely to the intelligentopen-mindedness of Mr. Winston Churchill (as he then was) when First Lord of the Admiralty, and to the keenly practicaloutlook of Commodore (now Rear-Admiral Sir) Murray F. Sueter as Director of the Air Department, the Admiralty pursueda policy of buying their aircraft from a number of manufacturing firms. This was rather different from the War Office's tendencyto look first to the designs of the Royal Aircraft Factory; yet in more than one case the War Office had to admit the superiorityof the types ordered by the Admiralty and to place belated orders for the manufacture of the aircraft concerned for the R.F.C. As with so many of the better aeronautical products of the firstWorld War, the prototype H-Strutter was built for the Admiralty; and the first production contract, for 150 aircraft, was placed bythat Department. Deliveries began early in the spring of 1916, and by the end of that April No. 5 Wing of the R.N.A.S. hadone complete Flight of li-Strutters. This Fifth Wing of the R.N.A.S. had been formed at Dover under Sqn. Cdr. SpenserGrey and moved into the newly-made aerodrome at Coudekerque at the beginning of March 1916. The Wing had been speciallytrained for long-range bombing duties, and its principal equip- ment consisted of Breguet Vs and Caudron G.IVs. The l^-Strutters of No. 5 Wing flew first as escorts to thebombing aircraft, but they were later themselves used as bombers. At about 1.30 p.m. on August 2, 1916, ten bomb-laden CaudronG.IVs and one Farman F.40 of Nos. 4 and 5 Wings, R.N.A.S., arrived over the enemy aerodrome at St. Denis Westrem. Theirbombing was controlled by the pilot of a IJ-Strutter, who flew independently of the main formation; this was a new departurein bombing technique. In response to the Sopwith's Very light signals the bombers changed formation from their wide vie toline astern. They bombed in succession, then reformed for their homeward journey. On the same day three H-Strutters of No. 5Wing dropped thirty-one le Pecq bombs on an ammunition dump and railway sidings at Meirelbeke. Direct hits were scoredbut there were no resulting explosions. On August 9 two R.N.A.S. pilots of the 5th Wing made gallantand accurate attacks on German airship bases in Belgium; both flew their H-Strutters without observers. Fit. Sub-Lt. R. H.Collet flew out to sea from Dunkirk and recrossed the coast east of Zeebrugge. As he neared the airship at Berchem Ste. Agathehe could see that the hangar was empty, so he flew on to Evere. Bombing from a height of only 150ft, he scored eight direct hitswith le Pecq bombs on the airship shed—which, like that at Berchem Ste. Agathe, was empty. Fit. Sub-Lt. D. E. Harkness
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