Sopwith Triplane | Curator on the Loose!
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- čas přidán 20. 08. 2020
- Senior Curator Matthew Burchette takes us back to WWI on this week's episode with the Sopwith Triplane! Learn about the plane that inspired the Red Baron's Fokker Dr.I.
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Host/Curator: Matthew Burchette
Camera/Editor: Tori Hunt
Some Tripes were modded with twin Vickers MGs. Collishaw himself, had that configuration. The problem with that was the extra weight pretty much nullified the altitude advantage. All in all, that didn't really matter. The pilots that flew the Tripe were able to wreak havoc upon the GAF.
Harry Hawker was an incredible pilot. After his tragic demise, T.O.M. Sopwith renamed his company as Hawker Aviation. The rest is history.
Actually the postwar British government bankrupted Sopwith Aviation & Tommy Sopwith re - started with the Hawker name, his final great aircraft being the Harrier VTOL, & post WW1 Sopwith developed a friendship with Fokker who was Dutch & not German.
@pcka12 New book just out, Dannat & Lyman, 'Victory into Defeat', describes how British forces were at peak of world equipment and strategy at end of WW1, then starved of funds and leadership vs Germany who learned lessons from WW1. Result: constant defeats and casualties for army for first years of WW2
FWIW, I think this is the most information I have ever seen anywhere about the _Sopwith Triplane._
There is so much information out there about the Fokker, It's about time the _Tripe Hound_ got some love!
The Germans captured a Sopwith Triplane. They studied it pretty thoroughly before producing the Fokker Dr1. Sopwith worksmanship was excellent. Fokker Triplanes were poorly enough built to fall apart in midair or upon landing.
@@georgej.dorner3262>>> AFAIK, visibility for the pilot from the _Fokker D.III_ was NOT as good as the _Tripehound._
Great presentation you guys rock!!!!!!!
Wow! I never realized that the Triplane was that fast. No wonder it was a terror. All that climb and altitude superiority ... AND speed (not to mention how it elegant it looks (should be an advantage as who would want to shoot down something so pretty).
Taxiing must have been interesting when you're seated so low. :-)
Awesome video. As a Canadian, thank you for including Raymond Collishaw!
One pilot who flew the Sopwith Triplane described it like this:
"The Tripe, when performing aerobatics, looked like an inebriated flight of stairs!"
I really love the ragplanes. It's almost like everyone could build their own.
Tommy Sopwith was a genius. I don't believe he ever made a bad plane. Most of them were beautiful to boot.
Another technicality comment:
When you state the prop/engine rotates around the crankcase, what you mean is the prop and engine (and crankcase) rotates around the crankSHAFT. In gear-head lingo, that's an important distinction.
"...three ailerons per (3) wing (s)..." That would be 9 ailerons. ;)
Kidding aside, my partner and I are working on plans to perhaps begin a triplane as early as 2024 at my shop in NC.
I've finished with my build of the rear section of a SPAD XIII, so time to move on to the Sopwith! Tom is negotiating as I send this message.
Let's connect, if you're still up in WA. :)
Amazing story.. I'm British and an enthusiastic and active historian I am asking myself why I have never heard of 10 Squadron RNAS ... our own 'Flying Circus'
7.25 No. The whole engine revolved around the crankshaft not the crankcase.
Thanks for the details on this. I had no idea production numbers were so small,that service history was so short.
FWIW, my father,b1919,always pronounced Black Maria(aka paddy wagon) with the long i. I have no idea why the term came into use,or why the long i was used. It might be worth doing some homework on that,just for precisions sake. One of the things that was noted just after WWI in Canada was the switch to a more American pronunciation and accent,especially after voice radio receivers started being sold. The pilots would have been using the Kings English while shooting at Germans.
The Sopwith Triplane is a personal favorite, never knew that much about it though. So appreciate this brief vignette all the more. Cheers.
It is pronounced 'Mar-eye'ah' in the UK, but exactly why is lost to history.
@@faeembrugh I can't be certain but given the etymology of 'Black Mariah' and humour of the day, I would bet good money the pilot was Irish, or if you prefer, an Englishman, born in Ireland.
I've gone to the Museum of Flight many times over the years and with this series, I find myself learning even more. Really enjoyable and educational series.
Thank you Sir Tom Sopwith!
The engine torque he mentions was the reason behind the Camel’s tight right hand turning. And one of the two origins of its nickname. If you didn’t keep control of the turn the aircraft could literally bite you like a camel 🐪 in sending you into a spin. The other reason is the small hump where the guns were mounted. In-line engines also also have torque in the direction of the propellor spin which is usually handled by making that wing slightly longer, snout 6 inches.
They have a replica Tripe at the shuttleworth collection UK, they were from what you have said a formidable aircraft, perhaps build time and costs came into play too when compared to the camel etc.I had a glorious summer in Seattle in the 80s the sun shone all the time, no rain whatsoever. Perhaps one day i shall return. Cheshire UK.
One of the reasons that the Triplane was developed so quickly was that it was a direct development of the Sopwith Pup, using basically the same fuselage and tail section, with new wings and a considerably more powerful engine.
Fokker's chief designer was sent to the front to research what was needed to reclaim air superiority. he came back and declared "we need a triplane" so they made one , the DR1. But with no understanding of the advantages gained by the Sopwith.
Great British fighter.
This is a great series highly recomended!
It's still possible to buy stamped autographed envelopes of the 'Tripe' signed by Tommy Sopwith himself and have your own bit of Philatelic and Aviation History and the stamped signed envelopes are really quite cheap :)
Performance - wonderful. But a nightmare to maintain due to poor positioning of oil and fuel tanks. This required a complete disassembly and rebuild to do basic maintenance on the engine, at a time when engines had to be changed every 40 hrs of flight. After disassembly, the aircraft had to be re rigged, so availability (mean time between failures/ mean time to repair) was less than 1/4 of comparable aircraft, and put a strain on riggers and fitters, who were in short supply.
But performance - outstanding. It was only the maintenance issue that prevented larger scale production and use into late 1918.
Great video..
Thanks for the tour. I love Tripes. In Aussie terms they gave the Albatross' the "Flogging they deserved". As an aside check out the Ozz history in them. I wish I could get accurate plans. I'm currently building a 1/17 scale model for war museum in Seven Hills (Sydney aus). They have a D111 ceiling mounted in a descending turn. So I thought NO!! get a tripe after it. Sadly, most people have no knowledge of this brave little air warrior. All they know of is Fokker's dr1 which Fokker didn't design. and it was knock off anyway
Detailed plans are now readily available via my friend Craig.
This is so cool to see this beautiful airplane fly. Thank you for posting.
technically, there is no rank of "flight commander"...it is positional and is usually held by a flight lieutenant or
captain, so Collishaw at the time was a flight lieutenant in the RNAS, and later a captain in that same org, and when the RNAS was subsumed into the RAF in 1918, he went on to eventually reach Air Vice Marshal, in that org.
other than that....all is well and good
the RNAS also had a two gun version of the sopwith Tri-plane. Early version of the triplane had a 90hp engine.
Great presentation! Learned a lot! I’m a huge tripe fan now!
Hi Matthew, glad to have you BAM here in Seattle, I'm in Kitsap myself and started reading Dan Hampton's Lords of the Sky... which got me here.
Love your videos, sir, perfect companion to the book.
Thanks for the inspiration and keep on trucking!
Sopwith were contracted to the RNAS (Navy) to provide them with aircraft during the early months of WW1. The RFC soon realised their blunder and bought as many Sopwith products (One and a half Strutter, Pup, Camel etc as soon as possible.)
Excellent
Excellent video.
Seattle, that explains it
I know you bought that from my museum Chapman Fighter Aircraft Museum- I want it back!
🤣🤣🤣❤️🫡
Well done...
you are so lucky! what a great collection. I wonder why they didn't retrofit the ship with more guns?
More about the “tidbit of the day”
Fokker didn’t design his triplane until shortly after inspecting a downed Sopwith trip. He basically COPIED the Sopwith, but (wisely) put dual guns on it, and I think it was much faster. Unfortunately for many German pilots, Fokker’s triplane did have torque issues that killed many pilots in training.
Sorry I can’t cite my history source(s) on this, it’s been 40 years since I read about it.
Go navy!
I believe the air cadet squadron in Kamloops BC is named after the Black Maria
204 Black Maria.
If I am wrong I would like to know the actual origin of their name
Like the Sopwith Dolphin, the Army didn’t know what worked
In the rush to counter the Sopwith Triplane the Fokker DR1 was produced with resulting slow speed and shabby construction.
The DR1 was not Von Richtoffens favorite. The D7 was.
@@therealbadbob2201 When you think of the awful aircraft that he flew, the D7 was a super aircraft.
Really cool channel. Awesome aircraft my only suggestion: in my own opinion it sounds as if your talking to a Saturday morning kids show?
Enjoyed the video!whats the history of the airplane you are standing in front of?
It's a reproduction, most WW1 aircraft that exist today are reproductions.
@@MrDgwphotos come to the National Air and Space Museum. . .we have NO REPRODUCTIONS of WW I aircraft! Including the last Camel built at the Sopwith factory!
@@scottmarquiss7941 kinda trek from the west coast
Is there a way we could communicate directly with the curator offline? Great vids. Thanks.
Thanks Robert! You can email Matthew at curator@museumofflight.org.
Speaking of RNAS aces, how about Stan Dallas?
A small correction, if you don't mind. In this case, Maria is pronounced Mariah. mə-RY-ə
A Black Mariah(sic) is an English term dating from the 1800's for what we today call a "Paddy Wagon".
Ray Collishaw, the grandson of squadron commander Raymond Collishaw, was a dear friend of mine.
Mah RYE ah
@@enzannometsuke8812 Exactly. 🙂
I'd like information on Ray Collishaw, as my partner and I are planning to possibly begin building this plane as early as 2024.
It’s important to note that over 10 thousand feet you need supplemental O2 . Adiabatic lapse rate of about 2 degrees per thousand feet means it gets awful cold up at high altitudes. Carb icing , air to fuel mixture ratio, winds aloft . I doubt that pilots did too many high altitude flights. Hypoxia would adversely affect performance to say the least . The three short wings provided excellent lift but also a lot less G loading . G loading in tight turns can damage the aircraft - I could point you to charts on G loading but I am sure you get the picture . You could pull a lot more Gs in these old planes than in the modern planes I trained on in flight school , The Gear was simple and as with any tail dragger , you have to stay focused to land these . The gyroscopic effect of the rotary engine would help you in turns - I believe right turns but left required much more effort .
There was no supplemental oxygen that I know of in WWI. There are accounts of pilots going as high as 14,000 feet,fairly regularly. Also,the Zeppelin raids over England,survival for them quickly became one of staying high. Going up on a single sortie in an airplane must have been tough,I have no idea how the Zepplin occupants managed,staying high up for many weary hours. Cannot recall from memory just how high they were,but it was above 10,000 feet. Moving about in a very large construct like that must have been just awful,using up oxygen. The Zepplins were hated by the British public,but they were very brave men.
Just taking a leak up there must have been agonizing. Eating,drinking,anything else. No warming cabins for them.
@@paulmanson253 Hi. So . As a pilot I am required to know the FaR Aim . Now in regards to supplemental oxygen : what I am discussing is hypoxia and you CAN NOT get more O2 at 10 k MSL . O2 is less the higher up you go. You also have adiabatic lapse rate. So you can deal with the temps by putting on more clothiing but hypoxia will take you out . There is more to say on the subject . I am a flight instructor so feel free to pm if you have questions .
Being a private pilot, I know you can legally fly up to 12500 ft without O2, and up to 14000 ft for no longer than 30 minutes. Brief your pax for 'blue lips' as the first sign of hypoxia. My aircraft will do +4 and -2 G's, but I never went beyond +2.5. Agreed on the gyroscopic effect. Precession made for a very rapid 'up and right' as well as 'down and left'.
Gerard Oppewal well be careful with hypoxia . It don’t play . CO2 and carbon monoxide can be an issue . There is a recording you should listen to where the pilots had rapid depressurization . They were very slow and sounded drunk . They were lucky to get down safely .. 12500 and up to and including 14000 supplemental O2 is required . This is in the FAR AIM .
We are talking somewhat at cross purposes. You are of course correct as to what current standards are. They exist for very good reasons.
During WWI there were no standards. When this Sopwith Triplane was designed and flown. I looked it up. The Zeppelin boys who bombed London found that being at 16,000 feet,no oxygen, was not possible after about 4 hours. Too painful. Individual fighter pilots took their machines up ,and about 14,000 feet was as much as they could stand. Airplane,engine and pilot ,all performing sub optimally. But they did it.
Modern standards exist because learning them was written in blood.
The very technology that created pressure bottles full of pure oxygen was created during WWI. But ordinary service pilots did not have access to such.
Instead they got into their crates and flew them as far and as high as the aerodynamics allowed.
It is many years ago now but PBS had a program where a group of young people doing a bachelor's program in aviation did wind tunnel and computer modeling tests on a 1/3 scale Fokker E1. The monoplane. The conclusion was it was dangerously unsafe to fly. And that any modern reproduction would need significant modification. And yet in 1915,it represented a significant threat to Allied airplanes.
So times have changed.
I must say, I saw the start of this video and cringed at the Americanisms and American presentation. I stuck with it and came out the other side genuinely impressed.
The same Mr Hawker that went on to build the Hawker Aircraft Co. of Hurricane, Tempest, Typhoon fame?
Mr. Sopwith treated Mr Hawker very well. Hawker Aircraft was the successor of Sopwith Aircraft. Mr Hawker died way to young. On the other had Mr. Sopwith lived a very long time, in fact was involved in a modern recreation of a Sopwith Triplane, if I remember he called it an official one not a replica. If you have a chance look in to Mr. Hawkers life it was very interesting.
Very interesting. I have been to the Shuttleworth Collection many times here in the UK. Most aircraft here whether original or replicas actually fly. I'm sure they have one, but I assumed it was a trainer, not a potent combat aircraft. The Sopwith Pub and Camel are more well known
They built one & it was checked &
signed off by Tommy Sopwith as a late production model. I've seen it many times.
@@patrickskelton3610 That is true, I read about it back then, was it in the late 70s?
Single gun may be what gave it a weight and climb advantage...
Hy. Do you know the first plane to carry 20 mm gun for combat. Thanks..
and you have a lot of spare wings if you loose one...
What a fantastic plane...20,000 foot ceiling? What did the pilots use for O2?
Nothing. They were tough back then, and no elctrically heated clothing either!
Another advantage of the Tripehound...it didn't lose its wings in flight like the Dr.1 did. Better construction.
Not true. The Sopwith Triplane also had wing deconstruction problems in edge-of-envelope manouvering.
Another factor, Tom Sopwith was on the “outer” with the British establishment, he was a “social poseur” who attracted adverse attention and was thought of as a “War Profiteer”, which the Government Aircraft Factory used to have his aircraft discriminated against in favour of their inferior product designed by a “Committee”
And that committee allowed Bloody April to happen, with brave pilots and crews getting butchered flying outdated BE 2's and RE's. Those committee members should have been tried for treason.
@@blank557 why are you so surprised, from the nation who systematically fed the flower of their youth into the meat grinder of the Western Front, wasting the accumulated capital of 2 centuries of Empire, the nation whose premier general described his winning troops as “Scum” (Wellington about his Peninsular Army). The nation that wouldn’t pay a commoner like Joe Manson in a deal where he offered pay for and to supply the British Army with Artillery with twice the range, 4 times the accuracy and twice the rate of fire, if they would agree to him getting a 2 penny royalty for every shot fired, BUT paid Lord Stokes an outrageous amount AND royalties for a Trench Mortar design he stole from the Germans in WW1.
@@anthonyburke5656 War is a Racket, as Marine General Smedley Bulter once said.
@@blank557 I agree with Gen. Bulter, it’s a racket in the worse sense of the word, even when it’s a war that must be fought, the wrong people die.
Sopwith produced some outstanding planes.
BLM-woke would have a problem with the squadron name these days I think.
Great video, thanks.
I don't think the Triplane on display here has a rotary engine. It has two pushrods per cylinder and a fixed exhaust on the right side of the fuselage: that makes it a radial.
It most certainly is, it just isn't a monosoupape engine.
Black ma-ria-ah , brits huh ! Black Maria definition: 1. a police vehicle used to transport prisoners 2. a police vehicle used to transport
How did those guys breathe at 20,000 feet? Isn’t that the death zone?
Three ailerons per wing is a lot of ailerons.
The Fokker is prettier to my eye. The Sopwith is too tall or maybe it's main struts look too "heavy". At any rate, it certainly was a great plane, better as I recall reading than the Fokker. Well-done video. Se. 5a is my favorite WW1 bird.
Did Sopwith consider improving the firepower of the triplane?
They were building the Camel by then which had two machine guns.
Not the best source but I was reading the Wikipedia article recently and it mentioned that there were trials of it with dual MG's but apparently they were of limited success.
@@RRW359 - me, too. Apparently the weight of the extra gun killed the altitude advantage? Which does make me wonder (1) if the Sopwith Camel could pull two Vickers machines guns, why didn't they work on the Triplane until it could do so, too? and (2) if the problem was the weight of Vickers machine guns, what would it have taken to lighten them?
Camel had a considerably larger engine and wing loading
It did have a nasty tendency to shed its wings in a power dive
Flying at 20.000 feet in an aircraft with an non supercharged 130 HP engine and an open cockpit lacking supplemental oxygen for the pilot is a remarkable feat in its own right.
How did the pilots breathe at 20,000 ft?
Intro song please??
According to my family oral history, Harry Hawker did more design and modification on the Tripe than Sopwith.
Naval 8 received triplanes beginning in March 1917. Richthofen shot down one of theirs on April 29, 1917.
Don’t forget they were sent to Russia with the Expeditionary force, there is one in a museum in Moscow
It's been said the Red Baron didn't like the triplane Style he preferred to biplane
that's a thing that wonders me .... 1 vickers on the sopwith tripe but 2 spandaus on the fokker dr1
They did produce a twin vickers gun Triplane (6 machines only) as a test. Didn't work out so well due to extra weight and so on.
The fokker was a later aircraft design from a time when most fighters had switched to carry two machine guns.
Dr1 was slowwwww. Completely different wing strategy as well
Black Maria is pronounced Black Ma-RI-ah not Maria, the name of police vans that took people to the cells or to court. Google the history of the term, it has a racial dimension. They did experiment with more guns on triplanes but obviously time didn't allow for that and it is worth remembering that the Camel destroyed more enemy aircraft than ALL other allied types COMBINED. It is worth wondering how this design might have performed with say, a 150hp Bently engine...
That should be "Black Mar Eye a" like the hearse or the paddy wagon, not Black Maria".
so sad that the sopwith triplane didn't get any credit for being an awesome dog fighter in wwI
Indeed the likeness between the "Tripe Hound" and Fokker, lead to the downfall of many an Allied/British Pilot . Due to that likeness, bearing in mind they didn't have radios to communicate with each other, they had to rely on sight. Thus even at the speeds of the time Pilots had to be quick in identifying between friend and foe, if they got it wrong then Bang! they'd be dead having been shot down......
It's not "Blach Ma-ri-a" (like the girl's name) it's Black muh-RI-ah named after the Police Paddywagon used to arrest people and raid speakeasy's.
I hate the post processing.
The magazine-fed Vickers machine gun was grossly inferior to the belt-fed German guns. While the German pilot fed a long belt of hundreds of rounds of ammo through a blazing gun, the Vickers had to have its magazine changed every 97 shots. Which was a two-handed operation. So the poor Brit pilot had to steer with his knees while fumbling with a heavy magazine in a hundred mph slipstream. All to recharge a gun that couldn't be aimed directly.
That would be amazingly interesting if it wasn't for the fact that the Vickers machine gun was belt fed. It was the Lewis machine gun that was drum fed.
I think if the Sopwith had been equipped with two 303s and the more powerful 130hp engine, then it might have been accepted more readily by the RAF. The Focker triplane on the other hand turned out to be unreliable and prone to the wings tearing off in a dive. The Red Baron flew his just once and never flew it again!
Bullettube This is almost 100% untrue.
@@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935 Be more specific please.
@@bullettube9863 He had 19 'victories' flying the Dr1.
@@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935 Yes, but only after they strengthened the wings. He much preferred the better D7, and as you noted he scored only 19 of his 80 plus victories in the tri-wing. Most of his victories were earlier in the war, as allied pilots became better, (by copying his tactics) it became harder for the German pilots to dominate the western front.
They did try experimenting with 2 Guns on 6 test Triplanes but wasn't successful. The Red Baron flew the DR1 many times, yes earlier on it had a few failures of upper wing canvas tearing so he would have stopped using it as it was temporarily withdrawn until fixed. Mandred's brother Lothar suffered such a failure but managed to crash land and survived. That issue was fixed.
Not great research here......the Tripe actually went to France, for front line testing, in 1916. The pilot was an Australian ace, by the name of Roderic Stanley Dallas. It would be nearly another 10 months before the aircraft made a fulsome appearance, in the Spring of 1917. The first prototype Sopwith Triplane, N.500, went to France in mid-June, 1916 to undergo Service trials with Naval "A" Fighting Squadron at Furnes. The Triplane was an instant success, and no time was lost in testing it in action, for it was sent up on an interception within a quarter of an hour of its arrival at Furnes.
Why don’t you ever say where you museum is located??
Try setting down that Gin & Tonic and listening more carefully at 0:25! He clearly says "sunny Seattle".
The colour is so wrong. They were not that shade of institutional green.
From what I'm seeing, there were quite a lot of different renderings over this aircraft's relatively brief lifespan. Choosing accurate colors from 100 years ago can certainly be a very painstaking chore in and of itself, and perhaps this builder (painter) didn't intend to portray it precisely or have enough thorough knowledge to make the livery exactly correct.
20000 feet with no oxygen?
Great video but the Curator's talking mannerisms is giving me the diabeetus! Where I come for those mannerisms come off as condescending, just saying.
Annoying
Notice the landing gear on the fokker it has a wing between the wheels. The sopwith doesn't have one.