Working replica of WWI plane painstakingly recreated by enthusiasts
The Sopwith 1½ Strutter took to the skies during the First World War in the early days of military aviation.
Now a group of men in East Lothian are painstakingly recreating a working replica of this trailblazing aircraft.
Members of the Aviation Preservation Society of Scotland have been working on the project for more than 20 years and hope to get the plane airborne in the next few months.
Evan Pole, one of the team, said: "It's almost at the stage where we should be taking it off to an airfield for its flight trial because it was always our intention to build a flying rebuild, if you like, of the original.
"Built from original drawings as far as we can in accordance with modelling aviation regulations and safety.
"The fuselage is as per drawing. From the firewall forward, because we're not using an original rotary engine there are changes were using a new build 9-cylinder 3.6 litre radial engine – a ROTEK engine.
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"So, from the firewall back it is a wood-framed fuselage braced with piano wire and turnbuckles just as they did 1916-17 – which is the date on our drawings."
The Sopwith 1½ Strutter first took to the air in 1915 and the first aircraft entered military service when the Royal Naval Air Service took delivery of them the following year.
It was built to counter the aerial dominance of the German Flying Troops but was quickly superseded by the Sopwith Camel in 1917.
Another of the team Gerard Lohan said: "It's not the best-known aeroplane in the world but in many many ways it's a really significant aeroplane and led to aeroplanes that you will know about like the Camel and possibly the Pup.
"The reason that it was important in its day – albeit briefly – it was kind of the Eurofighter of its day for a short while, it was because it introduced certain things that aircraft at that time couldn't be like for example it can fire through the arc of the propeller which the German Fokkers could do and they were causing havoc – but the British didn't have that.
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"When they started to think about what they needed in 1915 in this designed they decided that they needed a fighter that could fire through the propeller they needed an observer gunner at the back."
"Also at the back is a sort of silver piston there and that alters the angle of attack of this entire empennage – so, therefore, you could alter the flight characters of the aeroplane as you ran out of petrol, as you ran out of oil, as you ran out of bullets."
Gerard stresses the plane's importance, saying: "It was very important but because it was superseded so quickly we don't hear about it so much.
"It's an unusual aeroplane but a significant aeroplane."
The Sopwith 1½ Strutter helped to counter the period of German domination in the air – known as the 'Fokker Scourge'.
John Guy – who has spent many years on the project, said: "The Germans have been shooting us down with their Fokker Eindekker aircraft which could fire through the propeller and they used the aeroplane as the aiming device and is, of course, it was extremely accurate and so in 1916 we were being shot out of the skies by the score.
"But when we got our device – things were evened up a bit more."
"Hopefully we'll get it in the air soon and this will hope will be memorial to those who flew and died defending the shores of Scotland," he added.
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