july 2016 AH 49OPPOSITE: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM (ABOVE) Q20627, (BELOW) Q80597; ILLUSTRATIONS: DON HOLLWAY
The Ships Camel was the first
seagoing fighter equal to any
contemporary land-based
aircraft. Captain Bernard
Smart’s aircraft, thought to be
number N6755, wore a
blue-and-white nose on the
Tondern Raid. The 2F1’s upper
wing featured a reduced-width
center section, shortening the
span by 13 inches to just under
27 feet, with steel tube rather
than wooden cabane struts and
ropes to which ships cranes
could hook and retrieve the
airplane from the sea. The 18½-foot fuselage was hinged
behind the cockpit, so the tail
could be folded for stowage.
The pilot’s stick was connected
to the elevator cables via
external control levers. Air bags
in the rear fuselage served as
flotation gear. To facilitate
ditching at sea, the wheels
were reverse-mounted, with
their convex sides in and flat
inner hubs outward; when
quick-release pins were pulled
via cockpit cables, the airstream
across their convex sides blew
the wheels off the axles.GUNS: The 2F1 replaced one
of the Camel’s two cowl-
mounted .303-inch Vickers ma-
chine guns with an unsynchro-
nized .303 Lewis atop the upper
wing—useful against zeppelins.
Later mounts let pilots elevate
the gun to aim upward and pull
it down to reload.
BOMBS: The standard Camel
bombload was four 20-pound
Cooper Mark II-A or 25-pound
Mark II-B bombs, but on the
Tondern Raid each plane
instead carried two 49-pound
Mark III bombs.TECH NOTES HUNTER AND THE HUNTED
SOPWITH 2F1 SHIPS CAMELZEPPELIN L54
The U-class L54 was a
member of the “height-
climber” family designed to
elude new high-performance
Allied fighters. Operating
above enemy warplanes and
anti-aircraft fire, the height-
climbers had problems with
navigation above cloud
cover and the effects of
oxygen deprivation and
subzero temperatures. L60
was of the V-class, similar in
dimensions and perform-
ance, but with 14 gas cells
(versus 18 in L54), deleted
tail skid and other modifica-
tions for simpler design and
weight savings.
DIMENSIONS: 645 feet
long (18½-foot Ships Camel
shown to scale), maximum
diameter almost 80 feet,
hydrogen capacity 1.97
million cubic feet, empty
weight just under 28 tons,
payload 43½ tons.
ENGINES: Five Maybach
MB.IVas, including two
driving one propeller from
the rear gondola, generating
1,300 total horsepower.
PERFORMANCE: Maximum
speed over 60 mph,
maximum altitude above
18,000 feet, range over
5,500 nautical miles,
bombload more than 3 tons.
OPERATIONS: L54 first flew
on August 13, 1917, and
completed 31 missions, 27
under Captain Buttlar-Bran-
denfels—including two over
England, where it dropped
more than 12,000 pounds
of bombs.ZEPPELIN L54
SOPWITH 2F1
SHIPS CAMEL