Sopwith Pup

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Sopwith Pup
Sopwith Pup

As a gift for their chief test pilot, Harry Hawker, the Sopwith company built a small, single-seat biplane for his personal use. Hawker reported that it was very agile and had a phenomenal rate of climb for the time, so Sopwith built four more, calling them unofficially the Sopwith Sparrow. The company realized they had a viable fighter on their hands, at a time when Britain needed one: newer German fighters like the Albatros D.III were starting to regain the upper hand over the Western Front. The Sparrow was upscaled slightly to the Sopwith Scout.

The prototype Scout flew in February 1916, and both the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Flying Corps quickly ordered it into production. Because it was smaller than Sopwith's main production aircraft at the time, the Strutter, pilots nicknamed the Scout the "Pup." Much to Sopwith's chagrin, the name stuck.

The RNAS' elite 8 Squadron got the Pup first, in May 1916, and found it to be a superb dogfighter, one that could turn inside all known German fighters and outclimb most of them. The RFC got theirs in December, and learned the same thing. The Germans quickly learned to respect this small fighter. New pilots found it a handful, as it could easily get away from an inexperienced pilot because it was so agile, but veteran pilots soon learned to use that to their advantage.

Unfortunately for the British, the Pup's dominance wasn't to last long. By 1917, the Germans started fielding the Fokker D.VII, which outmatched the Pup, and Pups began to be withdrawn in favor of Sopwith Camels and Triplanes; the former built on the Pup's success. Surviving aircraft were moved back to defend London from Zeppelins, or became what would later be known as lead-in fighter trainers.

The Pup would have one more claim to fame: on 2 August 1917, a Pup became the first aircraft to land on a moving carrier. (The pilot, Squadron Commander Edwin Dunning, tragically also would become the first man to die in a naval landing accident five days later.) A Pup also became the first carrier-launched aircraft to shoot down an enemy aircraft when one brought down a zeppelin over the North Sea, also in August 1917. The US Navy bought one to experiment with as well. Had World War I continued past 1918, Pups might have returned to combat onboard British carriers.

1770 Pups were built, and four survive today, two flyable, along with a number of replicas.

This Pup replica was built specifically for the Western Antique Aeroplane and Automobile Museum; it is flyable and uses a replica Rhone rotary engine. It is painted in the colors of an anonymous RFC squadron on the Western Front in 1916.

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Taken on: May 15, 2024
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Sets appears in:   • Aviation Photography   
Camera: samsung SM-A136U, 27mm, ISO 200 (more info) (hide info)
Camera: samsung SM-A136U
Focal Length: 27mm
ISO: 200
Flash: Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program: Program AE
Metering Mode: Center-weighted average
White Balance: Auto
Color Space: Uncalibrated
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