AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 05 / 88

Plate 05 of 88 · Great War · Triplane scout

Sopwith Triplane

Triplane, painted as N5912, the RAF Museum’s Sopwith Triplane, one of only two genuine Triplanes left and one of three built by Oakley & Co of Ilford in 1917 with a 130 hp Clerget 9B rotary, a trainer at Marske in 1918, flown at the Hendon pageants after its 1936 restoration and now displayed in London, painted as it is shown there: khaki-brown PC10 dope over the fuselage, fin and the upper surfaces of all three wings and the tailplane, clear-doped linen undersides, a polished aluminium cowling and engine panels, roundels on the fuselage sides, above the upper wing and under the lower wing, a blue, white and red striped rudder, black ‘N5912’ on a white panel on the rear fuselage, varnished spruce struts and a single Vickers gun on the centreline.

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as N5912, the RAF Museum’s Sopwith Triplane, one of only two genuine Triplanes left and one of three built by Oakley & Co of Ilford in 1917 with a 130 hp Clerget 9B rotary, a trainer at Marske in 1918, flown at the Hendon pageants after its 1936 restoration and now displayed in London, painted as it is shown there: khaki-brown PC10 dope over the fuselage, fin and the upper surfaces of all three wings and the tailplane, clear-doped linen undersides, a polished aluminium cowling and engine panels, roundels on the fuselage sides, above the upper wing and under the lower wing, a blue, white and red striped rudder, black ‘N5912’ on a white panel on the rear fuselage, varnished spruce struts and a single Vickers gun on the centreline. Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.0 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Triplane modelled here.

History

The Triplane

Herbert Smith designed the Triplane at Kingston in 1916, using the fuselage, tail and engine installation of the Pup with three narrow-chord wings in place of two. The narrow wings gave the pilot a much better view than a biplane’s broad ones, and stacking three of them gave plenty of wing area in a short span, so the aircraft climbed and turned very well. Harry Hawker flew the prototype, N500, at Brooklands on 28 May 1916, and he was looping it within minutes of taking off. N500 went to France that June for service trials with the Royal Naval Air Service at Dunkirk.

The Royal Naval Air Service took the Triplane into action with No. 1 (Naval) Squadron at the end of 1916, and by the spring of 1917 it also equipped Nos. 8, 9 and 10 (Naval) Squadrons on the Western Front, flying alongside the Royal Flying Corps during the Battle of Arras. With a single Vickers gun it was lightly armed, but it could climb above and out-turn the Albatros scouts, and German pilots treated it with great respect. In No. 10 (Naval) Squadron Raymond Collishaw’s all-Canadian ‘Black Flight’, its aircraft named Black Maria, Black Prince, Black Roger, Black Death and Black Sheep, shot down a large number of enemy aircraft in the summer of 1917.

Only 147 were built, by Sopwith and by Clayton & Shuttleworth of Lincoln, with three from Oakley & Co of Ilford, because the Royal Flying Corps exchanged its order for the Navy’s SPAD VIIs and the Camel soon replaced it: by the end of 1917 the Triplanes had left the front for training units. Its influence lasted longer than its service. The Germans were so impressed that the Fokker Dr.I and a crop of other triplane designs followed. Two genuine Triplanes survive: N5912 at the RAF Museum in London and N5486 at Monino, near Moscow, and the Shuttleworth Collection flies a reproduction built by the Northern Aeroplane Workshops.

This airframe

Triplane N5912

N5912The airframe modelled

N5912 is one of only three Triplanes built by Oakley & Co of Ilford, Essex, a firm with no previous aircraft experience whose contract was cancelled in October 1917. Delivered late in 1917, it never went to the front: it served as a trainer with No. 2 School of Aerial Fighting and Gunnery at Marske, Yorkshire, where it was given extra flying wires on the upper wing. After the war it was shown by the Imperial War Museum until 1924, and in 1936 the RAF restored it and flew it at the Hendon pageants. It is now displayed at the RAF Museum in London, one of only two genuine Triplanes left. The model shows it as photographed there: khaki-brown PC10 dope over the fuselage, fin and the upper surfaces of all three wings and the tailplane, clear-doped linen undersides, a polished aluminium cowling and engine panels with a round inspection door, roundels on the fuselage sides, above the upper wing and under the lower wing, a blue, white and red rudder, black “N5912” on a white panel on the rear fuselage, varnished spruce struts and a single Vickers gun on the centreline.

See it at Royal Air Force Museum London

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Triplane in 3 UK collections. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 88 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.