3 Different Triplanes

[Swampfox]

Originally Posted by bagpiper

Looks like confession time SFX. I used to paint flight simulator aircraft. I even had painting tutorials that had over 100,000 viewers that was hosted by AVSim or was it flightsim, can't recall. :o. I got a commission to do one for a large travel company in the UK but the git never paid up. lol. looks like we all had lives before paper doesn't it. I should say different lives.

My favourite flights were Chicago Meigs to O'hare - short skip and a jump and the old Kai Tak Airport - Checkerboard landing in Hong Kong. I live there for 3 years and it has to be one of the most exciting landing ever. Not the same with the new airport.

Thanks for sharing SFX. Brought back some memories.

Cheers
Jim

Jim, I wonder if I ever flew any of your repaints, I have over 300 a/c in my sim collection.

I learned how to fly sim planes out of Meigs, I was sad to hear that they closed it. Later I moved to Edwards in California because I was flying some pretty wild X planes later on.

I slowly moved up to 100% reality and I crashed lots of electrons over the years;-) but I did learn how to fly a Cessna 182 with full checklists from takeoff to landing.........I actually learned enough about actual procedures to realize that I am not cutout for real world flying. Too much BS to deal with.

Those were the days...

SFX

[Ashrunner]

Swampfox...as you may know, Meigs Field wasn't closed...it was destroyed by Mayor Daley in the middle of the night. It was political BS, citing "potential terrorist attacks" to get rid of the airfield.

From Wikipedia - In 2001, a compromise was reached between Chicago, the State of Illinois, and others to keep the airport open for the next twenty-five years. However, the federal legislation component of the deal did not pass the United States Senate. In a controversial move on March 31, 2003, Mayor Daley ordered private crews to destroy the runway in the middle of the night, bulldozing large X-shaped gouges into the runway surface. The required notice was not given to the Federal Aviation Administration or the owners of airplanes tied down at the field, and as a result sixteen planes were left stranded at an airport with no operating runway, and an incoming flight was diverted. The stranded aircraft were later allowed to depart from Meigs' 3,000-foot (910 m) taxiway.

I flew out of Meigs a number of times with friends and just prior to my enlistment in the Air Force in 1969, had seriously given thought to learn to fly through an instructor who worked out of Meigs Field. When I saw what that idiot mayor did, I cried. Not only was it a beautiful airfield, it was a city landmark.

[Swampfox]

Originally Posted by Ashrunner

Swampfox...as you may know, Meigs Field wasn't closed...it was destroyed by Mayor Daley in the middle of the night. It was political BS, citing "potential terrorist attacks" to get rid of the airfield

I had no clue that's what happened. Politics is so stupid sometimes.......... maybe in a way it was a "terrorist attack" of a different kind.

I've never flown there again in my sim and have often though of doing it again, maybe I'll do it just because I still can.

Thanks for the update, guess I'm way behind the times.

SFX

[Wyvern]

very cool! yes- a matchup that simply wouldn't have happened in the real world- the Sopwith had already faded away by the time the Pfalz Dr.1 was being tested.

Wyvern

[Don Boose]

Wonderful screen shot! I would have opted for the Sopwith myself, every time.

Thanks also for the list of tripes and for the mention of the Bowers and McDowell book.

By the way (and not to cause a thread hijack), but does anyone know of an existing photo or image of any kind of the Alcock Scout (Sopwith Mouse)? It was not a triplane, but was based on the Sopwith Tripe. It was apparently cobbled together by Flight Lieutenant Jack Alcock at the RNAS base at Moudros in 1917 from parts of a Sopwith Triplane, to which he added the top wings of a Pup, the tailplane of a Camel, and some other pieces of his own design. Alcock Scout - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Don

[Leif Ohlsson]

Synchronicity, conincidence, or what? Yesterday I happened to notice the name Alcock, and his Triplane "Mouse", while browsing through the Osprey "Aircraft of the Aces" No 62 on the Sopwith Triplane by Norman Franks. So here it is - or is it?:



As you can see, the "Mouse" referred to in this publication is a garden variety Triplane, albeit fitted with a Lewis gun in addition to the common Vickers. There would not have been any call for renaming this aircraft into anything like the "Mouse" or "Alcock A.1". Nevertheless, here's what the caption (p. 60) says:

Despite being all but written off in the 26 March 1917 crash, N5431 flew again after a major rebuild at Mudros, on the Greek island of Lemnos (strategically located beween Greece and Turkey in the Aegean Sea). Note that in addition to the standard Vickers gun, Alcock also installed a Lewis gun above the cockpit during the fighter's reconstruction. Built with parts taken from other aircraft, Alcock called it his "Sopwith Mouse", and also his "Alcock A.1" (Bruce/Leslie)

There might be a tailplane from a Camel there, but certainly no top wing from a Pup! And N5431 was mainly flown by Harold Thomas Mellings, while Alcock continued on a Camel.

Now, given the quite detailed description in the Wikipedia entry, built upon a number of sources I don't have access to, it might be the case that the Osprey photo is of a Triplane fitted with a Lewis gun (by Alcock or somebody else), and wrongly attributed by the Osprey author as the "Mouse" you are looking for.

Judging from the Wikipedia description, the "A.1 Mouse" must have been a biplane, almost a sesqi-biplane if one thinks of the small lower wings of a Triplane combined with the upper wings of a Pup. Comparing the basic measurements [Wikipedia] corroborates this:

Triplane:
16ft 6in span
18ft 10in length
10ft 6 in height

Pup:
26ft 6in span
19ft 4in length
9ft 5in height

"A.1 Mouse":
(n.d.) span
19ft 1in length
7ft 19in height

The length is almost the same for all fuselages, while the height is lower than the Pup, which means it would have looked something like a Nieuport. Which - come to think of it - might have been the inspiration.

This was interesting - but far from conclusive...

Leif

[Don Boose]

I rather thought that you would be the one to come though with the information and image, Leif!

I'm glad to hear that the Mouse was a triplane (so I haven't hijacked this thread too badly). From the description in Wikipedia it wasn't clear. I must admit that if I saw that photo, I would have assumed it was a slightly modified standard Sopwith Triplane, rather than a modified mash-up. From your commentary, it seems that there is still more to be discovered about this aircraft (or, at least, about the Wikipedia account).

Many thanks, Leif! Once again you get the Pour le Mérite for aviation historical research.

Don

[Leif Ohlsson]

Like I said, Don, just a coincidence. And - as I discovered while thinking about what I was writing - the Mouse cannot have been a triplane but must have looked something like the Nieuport sesqui-biplane.

I corrected that while you were reading & writing.

The guys to ask about something like this usually hang out at the Aerodrome.

[Don Boose]

Thanks, Leif. I will look into the Aerodrome Forum (tried to register but had problems, will try again later -- I was in there long enough to discover that there IS a discussion about the Mouse, but was unable to view it).

This Sopwith Mouse is becoming more interesting, but since it is not a triplane, I will pursue the topic in another, new thread.

Thanks for letting us chat in your thread, Swampfox.

Don

[member_3]

This from aviation-history.com:

"One Sopwith Triplane, N.5431, was used in Macedonia. It was on the strength of No. 2 Wing R.N.A.S., and in March, 1917, it was allocated to the new R.N.A.S. unit known as "E" Squadron, which later combined with a Royal Flying Corps detachment to form the Composite Fighting Squadron, based at Hadzi Junas as a countermeasure to the German bomber squadron then operating from Hudova. However, N.5431 never reached Hadzi Junas. It flew first to Stavros; and, in company with four Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutters, set out for Salonika on March 26th, 1917. Its pilot was Flight Lieutenant John Alcock. When landing at Salonika, Alcock made one of the few errors of judgment in his distinguished flying career. He overshot the small aerodrome and wrecked the Triplane. The wreckage was taken back to Mudros and rebuilt. It was still flying from Mudros at the end of September, 1917. On the 30th of that month it was flown by Lieutenant H. T. Mellings when he shot down an enemy single-seat fighter seaplane. "

The Sopwith Triplane Datafile (Windsock #22) has the same photo (and two more), one showing the aircraft prior to the accident/rebuild and two showing it with the added Lewis gun and a new fin "probably of local manufacture" with a straight leading edge. Comparing it to the other photos in the Datafile I can see no difference between it and a standard Triplane other than the fin and the added gun. Methinks the supposed Pup wings and Camel parts are the thing of legend (iMHO) - I suspect the "Mouse" and "Alcock A.1" appellations are Alcock's own humorous designations because of his participation and/or supervision of the extensive rebuild.

I'll give my "Cross & Cockade" collection a scan to see if there is any further documentaion of the unit and the aircraft.