The Sopwith Special torpedo seaplane Type C was the first
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
aircraft designed to drop
torpedo
A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, and with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, su ...
es. A single-engine
biplane
A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...
floatplane
A floatplane is a type of seaplane with one or more slender floats mounted under the fuselage to provide buoyancy. By contrast, a flying boat uses its fuselage for buoyancy. Either type of seaplane may also have landing gear suitable for land, ...
, it flew in July 1914 but proved unable to lift the design load and was soon abandoned.
Design and development
The
Admiralty
Admiralty most often refers to:
*Admiralty, Hong Kong
*Admiralty (United Kingdom), military department in command of the Royal Navy from 1707 to 1964
*The rank of admiral
*Admiralty law
Admiralty can also refer to:
Buildings
* Admiralty, Traf ...
's interest in torpedo delivery by aircraft began in November 1913, expressed by an order placed with Sopwith for a "mock-up" seaplane torpedo carrier, the Sopwith Type TT. This was intended only to
taxi
A taxi, also known as a taxicab or simply a cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice ...
, not fly; its trials extended over the following May and June. In February 1914, before trials of the Type TT had begun, this contract was extended to include a second, flying, experimental torpedo carrying seaplane. The resulting Special torpedo seaplane Type C was delivered to
RNAS Calshot
RNAS Calshot was a First World War Royal Navy air station for seaplanes and flying boats, mainly operating as an experimental and training station, but also providing anti-submarine and convoy protection patrols.
It was located at the end of ...
on 1 July 1914, carrying the
RNAS
The Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) was the air arm of the Royal Navy, under the direction of the Admiralty's Air Department, and existed formally from 1 July 1914 to 1 April 1918, when it was merged with the British Army's Royal Flying Corps t ...
serial number 170.
[
The Special was a four-bay biplane, with square-tipped, constant- chord, unequal-span wings connected by pairs of parallel ]interplane struts
In aeronautics, bracing comprises additional structural members which stiffen the functional airframe to give it rigidity and strength under load. Bracing may be applied both internally and externally, and may take the form of strut, which act in ...
. The 4 ft (1.2 m) overhangs of the upper wings were braced with an extra pair of interplane struts, leaning outwards and attached to the lower wing at the same points as the outer vertical interplane struts. There were externally interconnected ailerons
An aileron (French for "little wing" or "fin") is a hinged flight control surface usually forming part of the trailing edge of each wing of a fixed-wing aircraft. Ailerons are used in pairs to control the aircraft in Flight dynamics, roll (or ...
on both upper and lower wings. The lower wings were attached to the bottom fuselage and the upper ones supported well above the top of the fuselage.[
The fuselage was a flat-sided ]girder
A girder () is a support beam used in construction. It is the main horizontal support of a structure which supports smaller beams. Girders often have an I-beam cross section composed of two load-bearing ''flanges'' separated by a stabilizing ' ...
structure; the crew occupied tandem cockpits, with the pilot at the rear. The Salmson 2M7
The Salmson water-cooled aero-engines, produced in France by Société des Moteurs Salmson from 1908 until 1920, were a series of pioneering aero-engines: unusually combining water-cooling with the radial arrangement of their cylinders.
Histor ...
water-cooled radial engine
The radial engine is a reciprocating type internal combustion engine configuration in which the cylinders "radiate" outward from a central crankcase like the spokes of a wheel. It resembles a stylized star when viewed from the front, and is ca ...
was placed just in front of the forward cockpit, close to the wing leading edge, with tall radiators on either side of the fuselage. It drove a two-bladed propeller via a long drive shaft within a markedly tapered nose. The Special had a pair of strut mounted main floats, supplemented with small wingtip and tail floats. The main floats were long, in the beam and deep, spaced apart. Each float had two sprung connections to its struttage.[
The Special's performance turned out to be very disappointing. It was first taxi tested on 6 July 1914 at Calshot but would not take off. It flew for the first time three days later, though with only the pilot aboard and with little fuel. After it became clear that it could not lift its design load, it went back to Sopwith's for wing modifications. It returned to Calshot but was found still unfit for the torpedo dropping role. In November it was modified to carry bombs, but by January it was being broken up.][ In the meantime, a modified ]Short Admiralty Type 81
The Short Admiralty Type 81 was a series of British two-seat floatplanes built prior to the First World War, and used by the Royal Naval Air Service in the early years of the war. They were powered by Gnome Lambda-Lambda 14 cylinder two-row ...
(S.84, RNAS serial 121) had become the first British aircraft to drop a torpedo, on 27 July 1914.[
]
Specifications
See also
References
{{Sopwith Aviation Company aircraft
1910s British military aircraft
Special torpedo seaplane Type C
Aircraft first flown in 1914