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Sopwith 1-1/2 Strutter (One-and-One-Half Strutter)

1916 WORLD WAR 1

The Story of Sopwith 1-1/2 Strutter (One and One and a Half Strutters)

Like other Sopwith Air planes, the wartime Sopwith 1-1/2 Strutter owes its existence to the arrival of the Sopwith Tabloid, a boxy racing aircraft , arranged in pairs in canvas and wood during construction. The tabloid's design proved successful, winning awards for speed and performance that caught the attention of the British military.

The 1-1/2 Strutter entered service with two "firsts" in British aviation - being its first two-seater with a "troll rod" engine arrangement (engines mounted on the front of the fuselage) and the first One has an active machine gun synchronizer.

Britain entered the war in the summer of 1914 and sought various types of aircraft for it. These include Sopwith Tabloid and its seaplane derivatives Sopwith Baby and Sopwith Schneider.

While these aircraft proved adequate for reconnaissance missions (sometimes armed for that mission, sometimes not), they were not military end products built for harsh wartime abuse. So Sopwith engineers set out to develop an all-new biplane fighter in the same form factor, but with the latest construction methods in an attempt to meet the military demands of Europe's rapidly evolving warfare.

Company founder Thomas Sopwith ironed out a new fuselage with engineers R.J. Ashfield and Herbert Smith, with a two-wing configuration and two rows of seats - a pilot and an observer/gunner. The powerplant of choice was a 110-horsepower French Clerget 9Z rotary engine. A .303 machine gun was mounted in a fixed forward firing position and fired synchronously through the rotating twin-blade propeller blades via a Vickers Challenger interrupter. Because the observer behind is one.

The 303 Lewis machine gun was mounted on a Scarff #2 ring mount for fire training along the key "six" of the fuselage. The wings are traditionally supported by continuous, staggered parallel struts to form individual nacelles - although half-length struts are used to connect the upper wing assembly to the fuselage (called nacelle struts), so doing so wins the plane's Nickname and eventual official name "1-1/2 Strutter" (One-and-One Half Strutter).

The pivot surface basically corresponds to the later dive braking. Testing of the 1-1/2 Strutter took place in December 1915.

The Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) became interested in this newer special Sopwith military development, and from February 1916 the type was procured in large quantities. The Royal Flying Corps (RFC) participated in this type of acquisition and eventually put it into service in 9 full squadrons - #37, #39, #43 (Bombers), #44, #45 (Bombers), #46 , #70 (Bomber), #78 and #143 .RNAS No. 5th Wing operating in France became the first 1-1/2 Strutter Squadron in April 1916.

Other British companies have contracted production and licensed manufacturing overseas at factories in France and the Russian Empire. With wartime and postwar operators finally spread across the globe - Afghanistan, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Estonia, France, Greece, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, this aircraft will prove to be a great asset to Thorpe For Weiss it was commercial success, Russia (later than the Soviet Union), Ukraine, Great Britain and the United States. For the United States, the 1-1/2 Strutter stockpiles the U.S.

Signal Corps, the U.S. Navy, and the U.S. Expeditionary Force (the latter deployed throughout Europe during World War I). Civilian coverage expanded to Argentina, France, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

In practice, the 1-1/2 Strutter had advantages over the German Imperial and Austro-Hungarian air services of the time. The type was originally used as a bomber escort and developed itself into an effective reconnaissance platform. When equipped with conventional throwing weapons, the 1-1/2 Strutter proved as effective as a two-person light bomber. The hull ultimately comes in two styles to suit its desired role - manufactured in two-seater and single-seater hull forms. In 1916, the original Vickers-Challenger breaker gear was replaced by the more efficient Scarff-Dobovsky system.

With a two-person crew, the aircraft is a capable "combat scout" and benefits from a "two heads are better than one" mentality. In its single-seat form, the design was simplified and the aircraft was somewhat reduced in weight, although more responsibility now fell on the individual operator.

Over time, a specialized form of night fighter arose to counter the Germans who invaded British territory after dark and became an important part of the homeland defense squadron.

Production of 1,439 1-1/2 Strutters was built for the British Army, with a further 4,200 to 4,500 built in France, bringing the total reported production to nearly 6,000.

While the 1-1/2 Strutter was quickly brought to the front lines, it suffered the fate of many WWI aircraft - technological developments during this period often meant that once-proud mounts were very The design of the incoming enemy was soon eliminated. 1-1/2 Strutters was succeeded by Sopwith Pups and Triplanes, which went live in 1916, so Strutters has since been pushed to a second-tier role.

All of these designs eventually laid the foundation for the Sopwith Camel, which won the war in mid-1917. The 1-1/2 Strutters also proved to be a humble ace-maker, with Briton Geoffrey Kirk leading the way with 13 confirmed kills.