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Fast and Furious by Stan Stokes.
Thomas Sopwith was a distinguished British aviator who organized the Sopwith Aviation Company. Sopwith produced an aircraft which won the coveted Schneider Trophy race. With the start of WW I, Sopwith Aviation shifted its focus to military aircraft, and was to become one the major suppliers to both the Royal Air Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service. In October of 1914 two Sopwith Tabloids flew a 200-mile round trip strike against the airship sheds at Dusseldorf and Cologne. The Sopwith Strutter firmly entrenched Sopwith as a producer of quality-built aircraft. The Strutter was a precursor of the Sopwith Pup, which would serve as the Royal Navys first carrier aircraft. The first production Pup was delivered to the Royal Navy in 1916. Most Pups were powered by a 80-HP Le Rhone radial engine, which gave the Pup a top speed of 115-MPH and an endurance of three hours. Many Navy Pups were modified to utilize a tripod mounted Lewis gun which could be fired forward or upwards through a cutout in the upper wing. Sopwith Pups were also utilized on battlecruisers. In fact, a Pup launched from the HMS Yarmouth downed the Zeppelin L.23 in August of 1917. The Royal Navys HMS Furious was the first dedicated aircraft carrier in the world. The Furious was initially laid down as a battlecruiser, but the design was modified during construction to include a flying deck forward of the main bridge. This configuration allowed aircraft to be launched as the Furious steamed into the wind. An attempt at recovery by having aircraft side slip on to the deck proved ineffective with one of the early attempts resulting in the death of the pilot, Squadron Commander E. H. Dunning, who had made the worlds first successful carrier landing on a ship underway only days earllier. The Royal Navy decided to further modify the Furious by adding a second deck aft of the bridge. The fore and aft decks were connected by a narrow ramp on either side of the funnel and bridge, and this permitted aircraft to be to moved between the two decks. Sets of longitudinal wires were set across the aft deck, and were designed to catch the skids of the Sopwith Pups during landings. Recovering aircraft was still tricky, and a rope barrier was erected aft of the mainmast to prevent aircraft which overshot from crashing into the superstructure of the ship. The first carrier-based naval air strike in history was carried out against the Zeppelin hangars at Tondern by the Furious on July 19, 1918. Seven Sopwith Camels, each carrying two 50-pound bombs were utilized for this mission. This important moment in the history of naval aviation is captured magnificently in Stan Stokes highly detailed painting entitled Fast and Furious. |
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