The Sopwith 2B2 Rhino was a British two-seat

triplane A triplane is a fixed-wing aircraft equipped with three vertically stacked wing planes. Tailplanes and canard foreplanes are not normally included in this count, although they occasionally are. Design principles The triplane arrangement may ...

bomber A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching aerial torpedo, torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped ...

designed and built by Sopwith Aviation Company as a private venture. The Rhino was powered by a

Beardmore Halford Pullinger Beardmore-Halford-Pullinger (BHP) were a series of aircraft engines used in production between 1916 and 1918. The engines were used on many notable First World War aircraft, such as the Airco DH.4, DH.9, Airco DH.10 Amiens, de Havilland DH.15 an ...

inline piston engine. Only two aircraft were built and the type did not enter production.

Development and design

In mid-1917, the Sopwith Aviation Company prepared a design for a single-engine bomber aircraft, the Sopwith Rhino. As it did not match any official specification, it received no orders from the

Royal Flying Corps "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colors = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = , decorations ...

Royal Naval Air Service 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 ...

, but Sopwith was granted a licence to allow it to build two prototypes as private ventures. The Rhino was a single

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a Gulf (geography), gulf, sea, sound (geography), sound, or bight (geogra ...

tractor A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or construction. Most common ...

with

aileron 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 roll (or movement around ...

s fitted to all three sets of wings. It had a deep fuselage, which accommodated an internal

bomb-bay The bomb bay or weapons bay on some military aircraft is a compartment to carry bombs, usually in the aircraft's fuselage, with "bomb bay doors" which open at the bottom. The bomb bay doors are opened and the bombs are dropped when over th ...

capable of carrying 450 lb (205 kg) of bombs in a self-contained pack that could be loaded with bombs separately and then winched into the aircraft to allow rapid re-arming. Defensive armament was a synchronised

Vickers machine gun The Vickers machine gun or Vickers gun is a Water cooling, water-cooled .303 British (7.7 mm) machine gun produced by Vickers Limited, originally for the British Army. The gun was operated by a three-man crew but typically required more me ...

firing through the propeller disc, while the observer in the rear cockpit had a Lewis gun on a pillar mount. It was powered by a 230 hp (172 kW) BHP inline engine driving a two-bladed propeller, cooled by radiators each side of the fuselage.Robertson 1970, p. 227.Bruce 1957, pp. 617–618. The first prototype made its maiden flight at

Brooklands Brooklands was a motor racing circuit and aerodrome built near Weybridge in Surrey, England, United Kingdom. It opened in 1907 and was the world's first purpose-built 'banked' motor racing circuit as well as one of Britain's first airfields, ...

in October 1917, with initial testing showing it to be nose heavy and subject to engine overheating. The second prototype, which differed in having the primitive pillar mounting for the observer's gun replaced by a more modern

scarff ring The Scarff ring was a type of machine gun mounting developed during the First World War by Warrant Officer (Gunner) F. W. Scarff of the Admiralty Air Department for use on two-seater aircraft. The mount incorporated bungee cord suspension in eleva ...

, joined it for official testing at Martlesham Heath in February and March 1918. Performance was unimpressive, with the aircraft having a poor ceiling and low speed, and it was rejected as a service type.Bruce 1957, pp. 618–619. The two Rhinos were then used as testbeds for development of propellers.Robertson 1970, p. 228.

Specifications

References

Notes

Mason considers these dimensions suspect and suggests a length of 30 ft 3 in (9.22 m) and span of 41 ft (12.5 m), although it states that these numbers are also suspect.Mason 1994, p. 91. * * * {{Sopwith Aviation Company aircraft 1910s British bomber aircraft

Rhino A rhinoceros (; ; ), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. (It can also refer to a member of any of the extinct species o ...

Aircraft first flown in 1917 Triplanes