Photos of Sopwith Snipe top cowling

abufletcher · 20 November 2006, 01:24 AM

Does anyone have a decent photo that shows the shape of the top cowl on the Sopwith Snipe? None of the photos in the datafile show this area clearly. I've also looked all through the photos on the Canadian Air Museum's site with no luck. In fact, I seem to have found just about every photo of the Snipe available on the web and still nothing.

Can anyone help? Also appreciated would be any close up photos of the hump on the Camel (from which the Snipe cowling evolved) or even a good close-up on a plastic model.

For that matter what would you consider to be the most accurately molded plastic model of the Snipe out there?

I'm working on a prototype for a 1:6 scale RC Snipe and we're to that stage where we need to be working out the molding for the top cowl.

StephenLawson · 20 November 2006, 02:49 AM

The late George Williams did a short article on the Snipe and its prototype in an early Over the Front article? Maybe it was a late Cross & Cockade piece I'll check.

abufletcher · 20 November 2006, 04:35 AM

I'd appreciate that. From photos I've got a pretty good idea of the shape of the ply cockpit/turtledeck decking and also of the narrow metal panels that enclosed the cabane struts. The lines indicating these is, BTW, missing from the datafile drawings. In those drawings (and most plastic models I've seen) the top cowling is modeled as one piece, which is inaccurate. The photos of the remains of Barker's aircraft make this clear.