Sopwith 1 1/2 "Strutter" - British/ Russian multi-purposse aircraft

Sopwith 1½ "Strutter" - a single or two-seater multipurpose biplane - half-wing, developed in the United Kingdom during the First World War. This aircraft was the first two-seat towing propeller fighter of British design and the first British aircraft to be armed with a propeller-synchronized machine gun. It received the name 1 1⁄2 "Strutter" due to the different length of the struts, connecting the upper wing to the fuselage. The aircraft was produced in the United Kingdom, licensed copies - in France, the Russian Empire, Japan. The aircraft were used in large quantities by the military air forces of the United Kingdom, France, the United States, and Russia forces, single examples - and other countries. The Sopwith 1 1⁄2 "Strutter" was the first aircraft, acquired by the Lithuanian Air Force. The Lithuanian Air Force had the only Sopwith 1 1⁄2 "Strutter" (No. A/1527) - ex the Bolshevik plane, during the battle for Alytus, after which it landed in the territory, controlled by the Lithuanian Army near Jieznas, and was taken as war booty in 1919. February 5 or February 14.  After being brought to Kaunas, part of Aviation, the plane lay unused in the hangar of the airship for two and a half years. The reason for this, according to J. Pyragius, is, that the aircraft was damaged during disassembly and preparation for transportation from the landing site. Another, and more likely, reason is that in 1919 the mercenary German pilots of the Aviation part of the Lithuanian Army could not and did not want to fly with an outdated English-built plane, and therefore they did not teach Lithuanian pilots to fly with it either. The "Struter" was first flown by a former cadet of the tsar's army, in 1917, learned to fly in England, military pilot Lt. Mr. Hiksa. The Sopwith 1 1⁄2 "Strutter", received by the Lithuanian Army, was powered by a weaker, 120 y. p. (89 kW) "Rhone" engine. The aircraft also did not have a place to mount the forward machine gun. The scout machine gun, if there was one, was taken by the retreating Bolshevik pilots. This the aircraft was of the A1511-A1560 series, built in 1916-1917 by the "Westland Aircraft Works", Yeovil, England and, as one of the earlier examples, was probably produced without the pilot's gun synchronizer and with a weaker engine. Sopwith 1½" Strutter" was installed and repainted in 1921 in July. The aircraft was painted light brown. White Vytis crosses were painted on both sides of the turning rudder and at the ends of the upper wing. The tested aircraft was found to be serviceable, but was put back into storage and used only occasionally, as its rotary engine had a short service life. There were no more such engines and spare parts in Kaunas, so it would have been irrational to operate it intensively, repair it and order spare parts abroad. In addition, at the beginning of the thirties, this 1915 the construction was already both technically and morally obsolete. In 1928 September 21 Kaunas was visited by a Latvian military aviation delegation, which included a colonel, later a general, Jānis Indāns, Latvian military attaché in Lithuania, and during the independence struggles, a pilot, who flew a Sopwith "Strutter", but would not use a Sopwith "Strutter" for several years. With the consent of the Lithuanian military, the aircraft was rolled out of the hangar, inspected and prepared for flight. Before handing over the plane to the guest, the commander of the 4th squadron, Leonardas Peseckas, decided to test it in the air himself. Lieutenant Kazys Šimkus, a scout, also flew together. After half an hour of flight at an altitude of 500 m, the plane's engine caught fire while landing at the Kaunas airport. The pilots did not have parachutes. The pilots managed to climb onto the wings of the burning plane and balance them to approach the airfield. According to L. Peseckas, the fuel tank exploded only after reaching the airfield, according to K. Šimkaus, the plane hit the rampart of the Kaunas fortress with its wing and both pilots fell from its wing. Both pilots fell to the ground from the plane, flying at a speed of about 100 km/h at a low altitude and suffered moderate injuries. The plane crashed. It is believed, that the cause of the accident was the control characteristics of the plane - the engine was without a carburetor and the engine thrust during landing was regulated by turning the engine off and on. This process consisted of two parts - turning off the magnets and closing the fuel cock. It is likely that L. Peseckas, after turning off the magnets, did not turn off the fuel supply. Gasoline spilled from the full fuel line splashed the heated walls of the engine compartment and caught fire.

A well-designed and well-detailed fairly colorful airplane model of medium difficulty for modelers of all experience. However, for advanced beginners and modelers with little experience, we recommend sticking it only under the supervision of a more experienced colleague, and there is not much, that can be done to simplify it - the airplane cabins and the engine are quite open, so You will have to do them, whether You like it or not. However, these assemblies are not too complicated, and their assembly is well illustrated in the graphic instructions. The model reproduces the aircraft of the Bolshevik Russia Air Force of the 5th Army of the Eastern Front of the Russian 3rd Aviation Community, which was used to fight from the airfield of the Inokentyevskaya station in Irkutsk in 1920.