Evening All,
Here are some more pictures of the Sopwith Gunbus conversion together with a few brief background notes. My sincere thanks to all who have shown an interest in this project - I just hope that the result has justified your interest. This one was not as difficult to build as I once thought it might be, although getting all of the angle and alignments correct was a bit of a headache! The span of this one is just over 8 inches (approx 21 cm) so it is quite large for this scale (1/72).
The Sopwith Type 806 Gunbus was given this designation by the RNAS in 1914 when it was adopted for use by them. It followed a standard procedure of the time by giving a type number based on the serial number allocated to one of the first machines accepted. The Gunbus was an early design of T. Sopwith and was originally to have been a two-seat anti-submarine patrol aircraft for the Greek Admiralty and was to have been a floatplane with the option of carrying a torpedo.
An order for three machines with dual controls was placed by the Greek government in 1913, with a second order for six being placed in February 1914. These were delivered as land planes with a four-wheel undercarriage between July and October 1914, but most were commandeered by the British Admiralty for use by the Royal Navy Air Service. (These were numbered 801 - 806, hence the type number 806). In fact the British Admiralty had ordered two machines in October 1913 and these were delivered to the Isle of Grain in March 1914.
In June 1915 another 30 machines were ordered from Robey and Co of Lincoln, but these were slightly different from the earlier examples, with a new nacelle, a two-wheel undercarriage with a narrower track, and cut-outs for the boom attachment points on the wing trailing edges. Some of the Robey machines had a transparent hatch beneath the front cockpit and racks for four or 6 x 65lb bombs under the lower wings just outboard of the second pair of interplane struts. The pilot was moved into the front cockpit in the Robey machines, but it is unlikely that any of them were used as operational bombers. Indeed only 17 aircraft were delivered complete with the remainder being delivered as spares. These machines were powered by a 150hp Sunbeam Napier 8 cylinder engine - a water cooled V more usually used in airships.
Other machines are known to have been powered by rotary engines, but exactly how many were so equipped is unclear. Whether many of these machines saw operational service in France is also unclear: at least one was used for a short time at Dunkirk by Commander Samson's RNAS squadron where keeping it airworthy seems to have caused considerable problems. This, combined with a top speed of 80 mph, probably ensured few were used operationally. Indeed only 17 aircraft were delivered complete with the remainder being delivered as spares. Most seem to have been used for training at Hendon, Detling and Eastchurch until the beginning of 1916, when they had been written off either by accidents or by damage caused by stormy weather in December 1915.
The term "gunbus" is frequently associated with the Vickers FB5 and FB9 fighting biplanes, but it was a generic term used at the time to describe any armed scout or reconnaissance aircraft. The pusher design was adopted because there was a lack of a reliable interrupter gear which would stop the pilot from shooting off his own propellor. Instead the observer gunner had a wide field of fire and in the case of the Sopwith Gunbus a 0.303 inch Lewis machine gun was mounted on a telescopic pillar. My model depicts a training machine so is unarmed.
I am not sure what to do next - whether to finish the pusher project or just do something different for a change. I could do with a rest from rigging for the moment but the idea of a simple kit build just does not appeal.
Thanks for looking.
