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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 1731.PDF
FLIGHT, 22 November 1957 821 A Blackburn-built Sopwith Baby, HISTORIC MILITARY AIRCRAFT No. 17 PART III By J. M. BRUCE, M.A. The Sopwith Tabloid, Schneider and Baby THE Clerget-powered version of the Sopwith single-seatseaplane had first appeared in September 1915. Thefirst to have the new engine was probably No. 8123, and most of the remainder of the batch 8118-8217 had the Clerget.As the war progressed, the Schneiders had acquired additional equipment and their performance began to suffer in consequence.As a palliative, the more powerful Clerget was therefore sub- stituted for the Monosoupape, and with its installation the frontalaspect of the aircraft altered. Gone were the bull-nose cowling and fore-and-aft mounting, for the Clerget was carried on anaverhung mounting and had an open-fronted cowling. The modified aircraft became known as the Sopwith Baby, butthe name Schneider persisted in use and was occasionally used to describe both Schneiders and Babies. Naturally, these loosedesignations have led to some confusion over the precise identity sf the type concerned in various exploits.Armament varied considerably. Many Babies retained the :entre-section mounting for the Lewis gun, on which the gun wasadined upwards at roughly 20 deg to fire over the propeller. This ras reasonable enough against targets the size of Zeppelins, butiie installation was useless for combat. A fair number of Babies lad a synchronized Lewis gun fixed on top of the fuselage andwing forward through the propeller arc, the standard position )eing central; but on No. 8151 the gun was mounted on theitarboard upper longeron. On this aircraft the Lewis gun retained ts jacket. No. 8160 had a Lewis gun mounted on its side butminting upwards at 45 deg through the centre section: the gun mtt was stayed to the port rear centre-section strut and the barrelipparently rested against the front spar of the centre section. Yet inother machine (which had a four-bladed propeller) had twin-ewis guns wholly above the centre section, firing straight ahead ibove the propeller.The upward angle of several of these installations was, of ourse, occasioned by the Baby's employment as an anti-airshipircraft. For similar duties, at least one Baby was experimentally itted with Le Prieur rockets of the type developed by a French(aval officer, Lt. Y. P. G. Le Prieur, specifically for use against ighter-than-air craft. The Baby in question had launching tubesor ten rockets, five on each pair of interplane struts, and their xing was quite a picturesque affair. Rockets did not becometandard equipment for the Sopwith Baby, but a number of 'Opwith Pups were fitted with rocket tubes; so also was therototype Sopwith 2F.1 Camel, N.5, when it first appeared. The Baby was distributed in the same way as its predecessor, theehneider, and was called upon to perform the same wide range of uties from coastal stations and various ships. The first officiallention of Babies in action occurs in the account of the attempted ud on Hoyer, Schleswig-Holstein, where an enemy airship baseas believed to be situated. Two Babies and three Short 184s '«e taken across the North Sea aboard H.M.S. Vindex, a former«e of Man passenger steamer which had been converted into seanlane carrier. All available ships of the Harwich force and« Battle Cruiser Fleet sailed in support of the little 2.900-ton "Tier. When well inside the Vyl lieht vessel on March 25,1916,tndnc got her seaplanes away at 5.30 a.m. The weather was bad W ti e raid unsuccessful; two of the Shorts and Baby No. 8152"'or F/L. J. F. Hay) were lost, and the joint adventures of the Information supplied by Mr. Bruce Robertson and material lentby Mr. A. R. Weyl, A.F.R.Ae.S., A.F.I.A.S., F.B.I.S., has contributed substantially to this history, and the author wishes gratefully toacknowledge their assistance. crews of one of the Shorts and the Baby are a story in themselves.*This action served to establish that the airship base was not at Hoyer, but a few miles inland at Tondern. A further attempt tobomb this target was made, but with the principal object of inducing the German High Sea Fleet to put to sea. This time, allthe aircraft were Sopwith Babies, and soon after 3 a.m. on May 4, 1916, Vindex and Engadine hoisted out eleven aircraft off theIsland of Sylt. Four broke their propellers, three had engine failure, and one was overturned by the wash of the accompanyingdestroyers. Of the three which succeeded in taking off, one struck the wireless aerial of the destroyer Goshawk and crashed; thesecond developed engine trouble and had to return after only a short flight; the third, alone of the eleven, reached Tondern,where the target was found to be obscured by mist. The pilot dropped his two 65-lb bombs but saw no results. The raid wasa complete failure. Although the Schneiders and Babies enjoyed the doubtful dis-tinction of figuring in some of the most spectacular debacles of the war in the air, they nevertheless performed a great deal ofunspectacular but valuable work on anti-submarine patrols and as escorts for the two-seat seaplanes. Increasing numbers of Germanseaplanes made the provision of escorts essential, and on June 24, 1916, four Babies were transferred from H.M.S. Vindex to theseaplane station at Dunkerque for that specific purpose. A further nine were allocated in May 1917, but the Babies were supersededby Pups two months later, when the Seaplane Defence Flight was formed at St. Pol. Another activity in which the Baby gave way to the Pup wasthat of deck-flying. After H.M.S. Campania rejoined the Grand Fleet on April 12, 1916, much encouraging work had been donewith her seaplanes. On May 29, five pilots made successful take- offs from the deck in Sopwith Baby seaplanes while Campaniawas steaming at about 20 kt; as before, wheeled dollies were placed under their floats. Next day her equipment consisted of threeBabies, four Schneiders and three Short 184s, all of which she would have taken to the Battle of Jutland had she received herstationing and timing signal. But she did not receive it, and the only Babies at Jutland were the two aboard Engadine; they werenot flown. Another Isle of Man steamer, the Manxman, had been com-missioned as a seaplane carrier in December 1916, with Short 184s aft for reconnaissance duties and Sopwith Baby seaplanes forwardfor anti-Zeppelin work. F/L. F. J. Rutland was convinced that the Pup was a better proposition than the Baby: in January 1917he made the first two take-offs from Manxman's deck in a Baby, and demonstrated that a strong wind along the deck was essentialto ensure that the aircraft became airborne. His argument was conceded, and the Babies on Manxman and Campania werereplaced by Pups. As the Baby seaplanes found increasingly extensive use in home * See The War in the Air, Vol II, pages 388-389.
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