GAAM Sopwith Pup

US95Damiani · 28 March 2010, 06:11 PM

The Pup is going slowly of late. Had to reinforce the front Landing Wire fittings, and re-do some soldering on the landing wires. we finalized the Interplane strut lengths, and I finished soldering the cables. unfortunately not really enough to photograph this week. I started building rear upper flying wire tabs as well. Hopefully more photos next week. CIAO!

hector · 31 March 2010, 02:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nickh

Bob,

Thanks for the comments, I think you may well be right. I was guessing on the acronyms anyway.

I'm afraid that the Pup will take some time yet, as we are still sourcing parts for the beast. At the moment an engineer at Cameron Balloons in Bristol, is making some brackets, along with some cables for us. We are still searching for turnbuckles and other sundry items, at a cost we can afford.

Watch this space !

Hi Nick
With regards to the cost of AGS stuff etc, I know what you mean, I use to have a lot of AGS Turnbuckles, Fork ends, Bolts etc etc, which I acquired some time ago at very reasonable prices, unfortunately most of them were stolen "along with other items" by Supermarine Aero engineering when they were butchering my F2b fuselage, I still have a few bits & pieces, but not enough to fully build my Snipe, & having seen the prices that are being charged now for Turnbuckles etc, it makes my hair stand on end at the thought of having to buy more.
Do you by any chance know what parts of your Pup are original ?, given that it is an original airframe, it is possible that various parts may have been replaced by home made items in the past "before Mr Baker found it", in order to repair damaged components.

Cheer's.
Bob.

Nickh · 7 April 2010, 12:28 PM

Sorry Bob,

The notifications seem to have stopped arriving . . I'm not ignoring you . . honest !

As far as I know, the metal work for the sternpost, cockpit area (including cowling attachment ring and machine gun mount), undercarriage legs (although stbd legs are from a different Pup), fuel/oil tank, and wheels are all original parts.

I have feeling that the tail empennage is also the original, I'm not certain on that, but I will check with the owner.

There are a few fuselage fittings and control horns which were in a reasonable enough condition to be re-used, and are original to this aircraft as well.

The fuselage woodwork has been replaced using the original timbers as patterns, some of which appeared perfectly O.K. but were too old to be trusted to flight, and were certainly not acceptable to the PFA (now LAA). The upper wooden cockpit decking is original, when sanded down the 1917 camouflage paint was revealed. The identification of our aircraft was by means of the manufacturers' plate attached to the airframe.

The wings are not original . . we are making them at the moment

You could be right about some parts having already been replaced before Kel found the thing. His restoration is listed as "rebuild 2" in the CAA records. The previous rebuild is not recorded, but we do know that the Pup was re-engined by the RAF in 1918 . . could this possibly have been "rebuild 1"?
The aircraft simply "dropped off the planet" in 1923 when it was supposedly disposed of when the RAF took over the Claude Graham-White aircraft factory, where it had been languishing since it's last flight at the Hendon Aerial Derby in 1921.

We have anecdotal evidence that there were two Pups in the Graham-White hangars in 1923, but as yet we have been unable to identify the other one. Although I have a theory about it, and if anyone out there has information on RAF Andover, specifically No 7 Group Navigation Unit from 1920 to 1923, I'd love to correspond with them.

There are lots of questions surrounding this aircraft, which I feel will unfortunately remain unanswered.

Hope this helps.

hector · 10 April 2010, 02:43 AM

Hi Nick
I know some one who has a lot of early AGS Turnbuckles, Wire ferrules & Fork ends etc "new old stock", he is rather hard to deal with, I have tried to buy some bits from him in the past but he tends to be only interested in selling them in large numbers, which is a bit of a problem when your talking of £10-£16 each for the turnbuckles, I am still in contact with him & will let you know if I can get him to sell just a few at a time.
Cheer's.
Bob.

Nickh · 10 April 2010, 11:16 AM

Bob,

That would be great . . thanks very much.

Nick

US95Damiani · 10 April 2010, 06:58 PM

Finally had some time to get the flying wires and wire tabs. finished. Time to start rigging them up.

snj5 · 10 April 2010, 08:05 PM

Super cool - keep those photos coming!!
Are you going to use the original angle of incidence and dihedral?
Very nice!!

US95Damiani · 11 April 2010, 05:39 AM

Yessir.
Incidence and dihedral are set to the Sopwith drawings.

3 degrees Dihedral and the incidence is set by the height of the lower wing fittings ane the struts.

Stagger will be 15" per the drawing for a non Adjustable Stabilizer airplane.

Nickh · 12 April 2010, 06:50 AM

Mike,

Some lovely pics there . . I did say that you'd overtake our progress.

I did spot one item in your pics, and that is the internal wing bracing wires. In all of our plans the outermost cross bracing between the front and rear spars is not shown. We believe that it was added but not recorded at the Sopwith drawing office at the time.

The bracketry for the bracing and the thimble arrangements are unknown to us, so we're designing our own.

On seeing your pictures, it's apparent that there are some drawings of this area of bracing which you've followed. Is it possible that you could let me see a copy of what you've got, so we can compare it to what we've done so far ?

Many thanks,

US95Damiani · 12 April 2010, 02:19 PM

Nick,
I'll be at the Museum on Saturday and I'll see what I can do.
I should be able to take a few good pictures of the drawing for you.

The replicraft drawings by the way have these fittings duplicated on them,
so If you can obtain a copy of them as well it would be helpful for you!