WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.419 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. We are thrilled 00:00:02.419 --> 00:00:04.480 to have you here today. And when I say you, I 00:00:04.480 --> 00:00:07.780 mean you, the learner. Yes, the one who is, you 00:00:07.780 --> 00:00:09.679 know, always looking to peel back the layers 00:00:09.679 --> 00:00:11.960 on a story you thought you already knew. Exactly. 00:00:12.660 --> 00:00:14.679 Today we're pulling from a really comprehensive 00:00:14.679 --> 00:00:18.879 Wikipedia article all about a British First World 00:00:18.879 --> 00:00:22.379 War biplane. But not just any biplane. No, we 00:00:22.379 --> 00:00:24.579 are talking about the Sopwith Camel. We are. 00:00:24.940 --> 00:00:28.160 And our mission today is to explore how this, 00:00:28.379 --> 00:00:32.179 well, this notoriously difficult, deeply flawed 00:00:32.179 --> 00:00:35.820 machine, actually became the absolute most lethal 00:00:35.820 --> 00:00:38.500 allied fighter of the Great War. That's quite 00:00:38.500 --> 00:00:40.600 a story. Now when I say Sop with Camel, your 00:00:40.600 --> 00:00:43.399 mind probably jumps straight to Snoopy. Right, 00:00:43.439 --> 00:00:45.619 Snoopy and the Red Baron. Yeah. But the reality 00:00:45.619 --> 00:00:47.719 in this aircraft was stripped of all that comic 00:00:47.719 --> 00:00:50.420 strip romance. There was actually a really dark 00:00:50.420 --> 00:00:53.479 joke among the Royal Flying Corps pilots who 00:00:53.479 --> 00:00:55.780 flew this thing. Oh, the three choices. Yes. 00:00:56.039 --> 00:00:58.380 According to our source, they joked that flying 00:00:58.380 --> 00:01:00.340 the camel offered a choice between three things, 00:01:00.740 --> 00:01:03.759 a wooden cross, the Red Cross, or a Victoria 00:01:03.759 --> 00:01:06.319 Cross. And the Victoria Cross is, of course, 00:01:07.060 --> 00:01:10.120 the absolute highest military decoration for 00:01:10.120 --> 00:01:13.170 valor in the British Armed Forces. It's a chilling 00:01:13.170 --> 00:01:16.829 piece of gallows humor, but it perfectly encapsulates 00:01:16.829 --> 00:01:19.069 the reality of the machine we're looking at today. 00:01:19.109 --> 00:01:22.250 It really does. To understand the camel, we really 00:01:22.250 --> 00:01:26.030 have to look at the sheer desperation of 1917. 00:01:26.650 --> 00:01:28.769 The air war over the Western Front is evolving 00:01:28.769 --> 00:01:31.209 at just a breakneck pace. Right, the technology 00:01:31.209 --> 00:01:33.969 is moving so fast. Exactly. Up to this point, 00:01:34.010 --> 00:01:36.810 the Allies are relying on aircraft like the Sopwith 00:01:36.810 --> 00:01:40.109 Pup and French -built Newport 17s. But suddenly, 00:01:40.209 --> 00:01:42.409 those planes are being completely class by a 00:01:42.409 --> 00:01:44.609 new generation of German fighters. Mostly the 00:01:44.609 --> 00:01:47.310 Albatross D3, right? Yes, the Albatross D3 is 00:01:47.310 --> 00:01:49.670 dominating. The Allies are literally losing the 00:01:49.670 --> 00:01:51.769 sky. So they needed something heavier, something 00:01:51.769 --> 00:01:54.650 faster, and honestly above all something deadlier 00:01:54.650 --> 00:01:56.890 to take back that airspace. Which brings us to 00:01:56.890 --> 00:01:59.469 the Sopwith Aviation Company and specifically 00:01:59.469 --> 00:02:02.670 their chief designer Herbert Smith. His task 00:02:02.670 --> 00:02:04.670 was to build a successor to the pup that could 00:02:04.670 --> 00:02:07.150 actually punch a hole in the German lines. Okay, 00:02:07.150 --> 00:02:09.689 let's unpack this. Because the story of how this 00:02:09.689 --> 00:02:12.530 plane got its famous name is just a perfect example 00:02:12.530 --> 00:02:15.969 of wartime pragmatism. It really is. Early in 00:02:15.969 --> 00:02:18.569 its development, they didn't call it the camel 00:02:18.569 --> 00:02:21.729 at all. They referred to it as the big pup. Since 00:02:21.729 --> 00:02:24.270 it was essentially just a bulkier successor. 00:02:24.389 --> 00:02:26.710 Right. But as they were finalizing the design, 00:02:26.830 --> 00:02:29.250 they realized they had a problem. The breeches 00:02:29.250 --> 00:02:31.629 of the machine guns would freeze up and jam at 00:02:31.629 --> 00:02:34.389 high altitude. Not ideal in a dogfight. Not at 00:02:34.389 --> 00:02:37.449 all. So to fix this, they simply slapped a metal 00:02:37.449 --> 00:02:40.129 fairing right over the gun breeches to protect 00:02:40.129 --> 00:02:43.009 them. And this fairing created a very distinct 00:02:43.009 --> 00:02:45.509 hump right in front of the cockpit. And pilots 00:02:45.509 --> 00:02:47.949 being pilots. They took one look at that hump 00:02:47.949 --> 00:02:50.889 and started calling the aircraft the camel. The 00:02:50.889 --> 00:02:53.270 military never officially designated it the camel, 00:02:53.669 --> 00:02:56.439 but the nickname just stuck forever. What's fascinating 00:02:56.439 --> 00:02:58.699 here is the sheer engineering density of that 00:02:58.699 --> 00:03:01.860 front section. The Camel was a pioneer in a terrifying 00:03:01.860 --> 00:03:04.599 way. It was the very first British -designed 00:03:04.599 --> 00:03:09.699 fighter to feature twin .303 -inch Vickers machine 00:03:09.699 --> 00:03:11.580 guns. And these are synchronized, right? Yeah, 00:03:11.800 --> 00:03:14.020 synchronized to fire directly through the spinning 00:03:14.020 --> 00:03:16.740 propeller disc. Which is still wild to think 00:03:16.740 --> 00:03:19.280 about. They initially used Sopwith's own mechanical 00:03:19.280 --> 00:03:22.129 synchronizer. But our sources note those mechanisms 00:03:22.129 --> 00:03:24.689 wore out really quickly under combat conditions. 00:03:24.969 --> 00:03:27.050 Yeah, mechanical linkages just couldn't handle 00:03:27.050 --> 00:03:30.750 the stress. By November 1917, they upgraded to 00:03:30.750 --> 00:03:33.419 the Constantinesco -Cauley system. Which used 00:03:33.419 --> 00:03:35.539 hydraulic impulses instead of mechanical links. 00:03:35.780 --> 00:03:38.060 Exactly. It was much more accurate and easier 00:03:38.060 --> 00:03:40.000 to maintain. But think about what that means 00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:42.180 for the physical layout of the plane. Oh, it's 00:03:42.180 --> 00:03:44.939 so cramped. You have those two heavy Vickers 00:03:44.939 --> 00:03:47.759 machine guns, the pilot, the main fuel tank, 00:03:47.780 --> 00:03:50.379 and the massive rotary engine. Usually a Clujet 00:03:50.379 --> 00:03:53.379 9B or a Bentley BR1. All clustered together. 00:03:53.560 --> 00:03:55.900 Right. Ninety percent of the entire aircraft's 00:03:55.900 --> 00:03:57.879 weight was crammed into the front seven feet 00:03:57.879 --> 00:04:00.099 of the fuselage. Seven feet. It's essentially 00:04:00.099 --> 00:04:02.520 a flying dart with a massive weight. attached 00:04:02.520 --> 00:04:04.879 to the very tip. And the designers were optimizing, 00:04:04.919 --> 00:04:07.300 for one thing, getting these airframes manufactured 00:04:07.300 --> 00:04:10.280 onto the front lines as fast as humanly possible. 00:04:10.520 --> 00:04:14.340 Which totally explains a brilliant, if kind of 00:04:14.340 --> 00:04:18.040 bizarre, tweak by Fred Sigris, the Sopwith Works 00:04:18.040 --> 00:04:21.100 manager. He suggested a change just to simplify 00:04:21.100 --> 00:04:23.800 construction. The wings. Yeah. They read the 00:04:23.800 --> 00:04:25.620 bottom wing with a five degree upward angle of 00:04:25.620 --> 00:04:28.439 the hedral, but they left the top wing perfectly 00:04:28.439 --> 00:04:30.600 flat. Which meant the gap between the two wings 00:04:30.600 --> 00:04:32.779 was actually narrower at the tips than it was 00:04:32.779 --> 00:04:36.160 at the roots. Exactly. They also put a central 00:04:36.160 --> 00:04:39.279 cutout section in that top wing to give the pilot 00:04:39.279 --> 00:04:42.240 some upward visibility. It's just a pragmatic, 00:04:42.660 --> 00:04:45.839 almost thrown together approach to solving incredibly 00:04:45.839 --> 00:04:48.819 complex manufacturing bottlenecks. But clustering 00:04:48.819 --> 00:04:50.680 90 percent of the weight in the front of the 00:04:50.680 --> 00:04:53.800 aircraft created a flight experience that was, 00:04:53.860 --> 00:04:56.319 well, it was a gyroscopic nightmare. That's putting 00:04:56.319 --> 00:04:59.269 it mildly. To grasp this, we really have to look 00:04:59.269 --> 00:05:01.709 at the mechanics of a rotary engine, because 00:05:01.709 --> 00:05:03.790 it's not like a modern engine. No, not at all. 00:05:03.959 --> 00:05:06.319 Unlike a modern radial engine where the engine 00:05:06.319 --> 00:05:08.839 block is fixed and the crankshaft rotates, in 00:05:08.839 --> 00:05:11.620 a rotary engine the entire massive block of cylinders 00:05:11.620 --> 00:05:14.060 rotates around a fixed point. So you have this 00:05:14.060 --> 00:05:16.779 huge heavy mass of metal spinning relentlessly 00:05:16.779 --> 00:05:19.399 at the very front of a light fabric -covered 00:05:19.399 --> 00:05:22.519 wooden box. And that spinning mass creates extreme 00:05:22.519 --> 00:05:25.180 gyroscopic torque. It literally warped the basic 00:05:25.180 --> 00:05:28.019 physics of how the plane flew. Right. If a pilot 00:05:28.019 --> 00:05:30.439 tried to turn left, the camel actively fought 00:05:30.439 --> 00:05:33.879 them. It turned slowly, and the torque forced 00:05:33.879 --> 00:05:36.459 the nose of the plane up into the air. But turning 00:05:36.459 --> 00:05:38.860 right was the exact opposite. Yeah. The torque 00:05:38.860 --> 00:05:41.620 of that spinning engine grabbed the plane and 00:05:41.620 --> 00:05:44.399 whipped it around to the right incredibly fast, 00:05:44.959 --> 00:05:47.019 all while violently forcing the nose down toward 00:05:47.019 --> 00:05:49.399 the ground. So experienced pilots figured out 00:05:49.399 --> 00:05:51.639 a physics hack to survive. They did. If they 00:05:51.639 --> 00:05:53.639 needed to make a 90 -degree turn to the left, 00:05:53.720 --> 00:05:55.399 they wouldn't even try to turn left. Yeah. It 00:05:55.399 --> 00:05:57.540 was mathematically faster to wrench the plane 00:05:57.540 --> 00:06:00.579 270 degrees to the right just to end up facing 00:06:00.579 --> 00:06:02.899 the left side of the battlefield. This is a master 00:06:02.899 --> 00:06:05.519 class in extreme design trade -offs. And it's 00:06:05.519 --> 00:06:08.199 a vital mental model as we study this machine. 00:06:08.839 --> 00:06:11.079 The designers of the camel traded entirely on 00:06:11.079 --> 00:06:13.680 agility at the absolute expense of safety. Because 00:06:13.680 --> 00:06:16.319 in the relatively low speed, low altitude dogfights 00:06:16.319 --> 00:06:18.860 of the First World War, snapping into a right 00:06:18.860 --> 00:06:21.220 -hand turn faster than your enemy kept you alive. 00:06:21.540 --> 00:06:24.620 Exactly. The British military leadership willing 00:06:24.589 --> 00:06:27.110 accepted a machine that was inherently dangerous 00:06:27.110 --> 00:06:29.790 to its own pilots because the brutal calculus 00:06:29.790 --> 00:06:32.810 of air superiority was just worth the blood. 00:06:33.389 --> 00:06:35.610 Even flying straight and level was an athletic 00:06:35.610 --> 00:06:39.019 endurance test. In level flight the camel was 00:06:39.019 --> 00:06:41.579 markedly tail heavy. And it lacked an adjustable 00:06:41.579 --> 00:06:44.620 tail plane. Right. So a pilot flying at low altitude 00:06:44.620 --> 00:06:47.439 had to physically hold the control stick forward, 00:06:47.800 --> 00:06:50.060 constantly applying pressure just to keep the 00:06:50.060 --> 00:06:51.959 nose from pointing up and stalling out. And if 00:06:51.959 --> 00:06:55.000 you did stall, the camel didn't just drift down. 00:06:55.279 --> 00:06:58.779 It entered an immediate, vicious spin. The tragic 00:06:58.779 --> 00:07:01.180 result of this design was that inexperienced 00:07:01.180 --> 00:07:04.220 pilots, many of them just teenagers with barely 00:07:04.220 --> 00:07:07.579 any flight hours, routinely crashed and died. 00:07:07.709 --> 00:07:10.490 before they even saw combat. The center of gravity 00:07:10.490 --> 00:07:13.790 was so precarious that a full load of fuel actually 00:07:13.790 --> 00:07:16.370 pushed it beyond the rearmost safe limit. Think 00:07:16.370 --> 00:07:18.970 about that. A rookie pilot would attempt to take 00:07:18.970 --> 00:07:21.550 off. The plane would behave completely unpredictably 00:07:21.550 --> 00:07:24.310 and they would be in an unrecoverable spin before 00:07:24.310 --> 00:07:26.350 they even cleared the airfield. The military 00:07:26.350 --> 00:07:28.189 realized they couldn't sustain those training 00:07:28.189 --> 00:07:30.829 losses. A lieutenant colonel named L .A. Strange 00:07:30.829 --> 00:07:33.490 at the Central Flying School engineered a pretty 00:07:33.490 --> 00:07:36.350 desperate fix. He had to do something. He physically 00:07:36.350 --> 00:07:39.329 pulled the main fuel tank out of several camels 00:07:39.329 --> 00:07:41.810 and replaced it with a much smaller one. This 00:07:41.810 --> 00:07:44.269 freed up just enough space to squeeze in a second 00:07:44.269 --> 00:07:46.649 seat. creating a dual control trainer variant. 00:07:47.250 --> 00:07:49.430 Exactly. It finally allowed an instructor to 00:07:49.430 --> 00:07:51.990 sit in the plane and physically override students' 00:07:52.629 --> 00:07:55.370 mistakes before that deadly spin took hold. Here's 00:07:55.370 --> 00:07:58.199 where it gets really interesting. Once a pilot 00:07:58.199 --> 00:08:00.360 survived that training and actually mastered 00:08:00.360 --> 00:08:04.120 this terrifying tail -heavy gyroscopic beast, 00:08:04.740 --> 00:08:07.600 the camel was an absolute killer. A weapon of 00:08:07.600 --> 00:08:09.540 unparalleled destruction on the Western Front. 00:08:09.899 --> 00:08:11.959 Pilots flying the camel were credited with downing 00:08:11.959 --> 00:08:15.620 12 ,294 enemy aircraft. Which remains the highest 00:08:15.620 --> 00:08:18.240 number of any allied fighter in the entire conflict. 00:08:18.399 --> 00:08:20.620 The agility that killed rookies made the Masters 00:08:20.620 --> 00:08:23.860 totally untouchable. It possessed better maneuverability 00:08:23.860 --> 00:08:26.139 than the Albatross, heavier armament than the 00:08:26.139 --> 00:08:29.000 PUP, and an entirely reestablished allied aerial 00:08:29.000 --> 00:08:30.879 superiority. You just have to look at Canadian 00:08:30.879 --> 00:08:33.840 ace Billy Barker. Oh, Billy Barker. Flying a 00:08:33.840 --> 00:08:37.220 single SOP with camel serial number B631 -3 Barker, 00:08:37.460 --> 00:08:41.340 personally shot down 46 enemy aircraft. 46. That 00:08:41.340 --> 00:08:43.940 is the highest number of kills attributed to 00:08:43.940 --> 00:08:46.700 a single airframe in the entire war. A phenomenal 00:08:46.700 --> 00:08:49.779 combat record. But having the deadliest dogfighter 00:08:49.779 --> 00:08:51.620 on the Western Front doesn't really solve the 00:08:51.620 --> 00:08:53.539 problem when the battlefield suddenly shifts. 00:08:53.720 --> 00:08:56.080 Shifts to where? To the skies directly above 00:08:56.080 --> 00:08:59.419 your own civilian population. In the summer of 00:08:59.419 --> 00:09:02.960 1917, the German military began launching daylight 00:09:02.960 --> 00:09:06.500 bombing raids over Britain using massive Gotha 00:09:06.500 --> 00:09:09.899 bombers. Right. The public outcry was massive, 00:09:10.220 --> 00:09:12.519 forcing the military to divert camel squadrons 00:09:12.519 --> 00:09:14.580 that were heading for France straight back to 00:09:14.580 --> 00:09:16.840 Britain for home defense. And initially, the 00:09:16.840 --> 00:09:18.960 daylight interceptions worked. So the Germans 00:09:18.960 --> 00:09:20.980 quickly changed tactics and switched to night 00:09:20.980 --> 00:09:23.340 bombing. Suddenly you have a daytime dogfighter 00:09:23.340 --> 00:09:25.659 that needs to fly in pitch black skies to hunt 00:09:25.659 --> 00:09:28.120 down bombers and zeppelins. That leads to one 00:09:28.120 --> 00:09:30.399 of the most fascinating engineering pivots in 00:09:30.399 --> 00:09:32.779 the source material, the Sopwith comic night 00:09:32.779 --> 00:09:35.940 fighter variant. The comic. And the comic was 00:09:35.940 --> 00:09:38.740 born out of absolute necessity because flying 00:09:38.740 --> 00:09:41.179 the standard camel at night revealed two fatal 00:09:41.179 --> 00:09:44.679 flaws. Right. First, firing those twin Vickers 00:09:44.679 --> 00:09:47.159 guns right in front of the pilot's face created 00:09:47.159 --> 00:09:49.820 a muzzle flash that completely ruined their night 00:09:49.820 --> 00:09:52.759 vision. You fire once and you're blind. Exactly. 00:09:53.320 --> 00:09:55.700 But the second flaw was much more dangerous. 00:09:56.000 --> 00:09:58.940 the ammunition. To destroy a massive zeppelin, 00:09:59.360 --> 00:10:01.740 standard bullets were pretty useless. They needed 00:10:01.740 --> 00:10:04.460 to use RTS ammunition, which is an explosive 00:10:04.460 --> 00:10:07.019 and incendiary round filled with nitroglycerin 00:10:07.019 --> 00:10:09.879 and phosphorus. And the RTS ammo was considered 00:10:09.879 --> 00:10:12.620 extraordinarily unsafe to fire for the synchronized 00:10:12.620 --> 00:10:15.659 Vickers guns. Why was that? Well, the Vickers 00:10:15.659 --> 00:10:19.120 was a closed bolt weapon. That means the explosive 00:10:19.120 --> 00:10:21.700 round sits inside a scorching hot metal chamber 00:10:21.700 --> 00:10:24.350 while waiting to fire. Oh, I see. The military 00:10:24.350 --> 00:10:26.590 feared the volatile nitroglycerine ammo would 00:10:26.590 --> 00:10:29.330 just cook off in the chamber or misfire, strike 00:10:29.330 --> 00:10:31.370 the propeller, and blow the plane's own propeller 00:10:31.370 --> 00:10:34.509 off in midair. So to solve this, engineers completely 00:10:34.509 --> 00:10:36.570 removed the Vickers guns. Just took them off 00:10:36.570 --> 00:10:39.769 entirely. Yes. Instead, they mounted two Lewis 00:10:39.769 --> 00:10:42.830 guns on Foster mountings over the top wing, firing 00:10:42.830 --> 00:10:45.230 forward above the propeller arc. Because the 00:10:45.230 --> 00:10:48.210 Lewis gun fired from an open bolt. Exactly. Meaning 00:10:48.210 --> 00:10:50.730 the round wasn't resting in a hot chamber, making 00:10:50.730 --> 00:10:53.730 it much safer for the explosive RTS ammo. And 00:10:53.730 --> 00:10:56.470 as a bonus, it moved the muzzle flash above and 00:10:56.470 --> 00:10:58.909 away from the pilot's direct line of sight. But 00:10:58.909 --> 00:11:01.610 because the pilot still needed to reach up and 00:11:01.610 --> 00:11:03.769 physically change the drum magazines on those 00:11:03.769 --> 00:11:06.710 Lewis guns, they had to move the entire cockpit 00:11:06.710 --> 00:11:09.649 back by about 12 inches. And to balance that 00:11:09.649 --> 00:11:11.309 resulting weight shift, they had to move the 00:11:11.309 --> 00:11:13.750 fuel tank forward. It was a total Frankenstein 00:11:13.750 --> 00:11:16.539 modification. But these night fighters performed 00:11:16.539 --> 00:11:20.299 exceptionally well. They really did. By May 1918, 00:11:20.679 --> 00:11:22.759 during the heaviest night raid over England, 00:11:23.000 --> 00:11:26.580 a combined force of camels and SE -5s intercepted 00:11:26.580 --> 00:11:29.100 a massive fleet of gophas and zeppelin -staken 00:11:29.100 --> 00:11:31.820 bombers. Inflicting the heaviest losses the German 00:11:31.820 --> 00:11:33.860 bomber fleet suffered in a single night. And 00:11:33.860 --> 00:11:36.200 that adaptability extended way beyond defending 00:11:36.200 --> 00:11:38.879 London. The camel proved capable in naval theaters 00:11:38.879 --> 00:11:41.139 as well, most famously during the Tundurn raid. 00:11:41.419 --> 00:11:44.110 Yes. The Royal Naval Air Service was flying a 00:11:44.110 --> 00:11:46.970 specific naval variant called the 2F .1, known 00:11:46.970 --> 00:11:50.450 as the ship's camel. In July 1918, Navy pilots 00:11:50.450 --> 00:11:52.669 launched these aircraft directly off the deck 00:11:52.669 --> 00:11:56.330 of HMS Furious. And HMS Furious was a converted 00:11:56.330 --> 00:11:58.409 battle cruiser. basically one of the earliest 00:11:58.409 --> 00:12:01.269 experimental aircraft carriers. Right. The pilots 00:12:01.269 --> 00:12:03.789 launched from a rudimentary deck, flew all the 00:12:03.789 --> 00:12:06.090 way across the North Sea to neutral Denmark, 00:12:06.529 --> 00:12:08.950 and bombed two German Zeppelins while they were 00:12:08.950 --> 00:12:11.509 still inside their own hangars. The psychological 00:12:11.509 --> 00:12:13.649 toll that mission is just staggering. They're 00:12:13.649 --> 00:12:16.289 taking off from a ship deck in a plane notorious 00:12:16.289 --> 00:12:18.889 for its deadly takeoff torque. Flying a bombing 00:12:18.889 --> 00:12:21.210 mission. And knowing they likely don't have the 00:12:21.210 --> 00:12:23.730 fuel or the technology to safely land back on 00:12:23.730 --> 00:12:26.500 the carrier. They had to either land in neutral 00:12:26.500 --> 00:12:29.340 Denmark and face interment or ditch their planes 00:12:29.340 --> 00:12:32.059 in the freezing sea, hoping a British destroyer 00:12:32.059 --> 00:12:34.620 would pick them up. Just incredible bravery. 00:12:34.899 --> 00:12:38.460 It is. Now, as we move into mid 1918, the landscape 00:12:38.460 --> 00:12:40.940 of the war shifts again and the camel begins 00:12:40.940 --> 00:12:43.809 losing its edge in the clouds. Aviation technology 00:12:43.809 --> 00:12:47.070 was advancing so rapidly that newer German planes, 00:12:47.570 --> 00:12:50.330 particularly the Fokker DVF, began dominating 00:12:50.330 --> 00:12:53.110 the airspace. The Fokker DVF featured a thick 00:12:53.110 --> 00:12:55.850 cantilever wing that provided incredible aerodynamic 00:12:55.850 --> 00:12:58.350 lift in thin air. It left the camel struggling 00:12:58.350 --> 00:13:00.649 for altitude and performance anywhere above 12 00:13:00.649 --> 00:13:04.049 ,000 feet. But obsolete at high altitude, the 00:13:04.049 --> 00:13:06.889 camel found a brutal second act closer to the 00:13:06.889 --> 00:13:09.110 earth. During the German spring offensive of 00:13:09.110 --> 00:13:12.649 March 1918, the Allies were desperate to contain 00:13:12.649 --> 00:13:15.409 massive enemy troop movements. So they took these 00:13:15.409 --> 00:13:17.990 highly maneuverable camels, loaded them with 00:13:18.269 --> 00:13:21.850 four 25 pound Cooper bombs and order them to 00:13:21.850 --> 00:13:24.309 conduct ground attacks. We're talking about flying 00:13:24.309 --> 00:13:26.950 500 feet off the ground, navigating a hail of 00:13:26.950 --> 00:13:29.830 infantry rifle fire and artillery shrapnel to 00:13:29.830 --> 00:13:32.370 drop bombs and strafe advancing German trenches. 00:13:32.809 --> 00:13:34.990 The sources note that these low level strafing 00:13:34.990 --> 00:13:37.830 runs caused massive confusion and panic among 00:13:37.830 --> 00:13:40.470 the German troops. It played a vital role in 00:13:40.470 --> 00:13:42.649 blunting the offensive. The camel squadrons took 00:13:42.649 --> 00:13:44.769 terrible casualties doing this, of course, but 00:13:44.769 --> 00:13:47.110 the aircraft remain viable in this infantry support 00:13:47.110 --> 00:13:49.289 role well. past the signing of the armistice. 00:13:49.490 --> 00:13:51.610 Largely because its intended replacement, the 00:13:51.610 --> 00:13:54.090 Sopwith Snipe, was facing severe development 00:13:54.090 --> 00:13:56.409 delays. Right, and the Camel's combat record 00:13:56.409 --> 00:13:58.970 didn't actually end in 1918 with the armistice. 00:13:59.289 --> 00:14:01.669 In the chaotic aftermath of the First World War, 00:14:02.090 --> 00:14:03.970 British squadrons were deployed into Russia as 00:14:03.970 --> 00:14:05.970 part of the Allied intervention in the Russian 00:14:05.970 --> 00:14:08.649 Civil War. Which is a chapter of aviation history 00:14:08.649 --> 00:14:11.149 that is frequently overlooked. Completely. Camels 00:14:11.149 --> 00:14:13.330 were sent far east to the Caspian Sea region. 00:14:13.480 --> 00:14:16.299 They were flying out of rudimentary bases, bombing 00:14:16.299 --> 00:14:19.279 Bolshevik nail vessels, providing aerial support 00:14:19.279 --> 00:14:21.820 for Royal Navy warships operating in the Caspian, 00:14:22.159 --> 00:14:24.559 and directly supporting White Russian forces 00:14:24.559 --> 00:14:27.840 with reconnaissance and strafing runs. This intense 00:14:27.840 --> 00:14:30.600 operational tempo continued all the way into 00:14:30.600 --> 00:14:33.340 early 1920. And the end of the camel service 00:14:33.340 --> 00:14:36.820 in Russia is remarkably dramatic. It is. In March 00:14:36.820 --> 00:14:39.159 1920, the British forces are finally ordered 00:14:39.159 --> 00:14:41.899 to evacuate the region. Logistically, they just 00:14:41.899 --> 00:14:44.279 cannot take the remaining camels with them. But 00:14:44.279 --> 00:14:47.059 they absolutely refused to let the aircraft fall 00:14:47.059 --> 00:14:49.899 into Bolshevik hands. So they deliberately destroyed 00:14:49.899 --> 00:14:51.899 their own planes. They pushed them all together 00:14:51.899 --> 00:14:54.200 and burned them right there on the coast. It 00:14:54.200 --> 00:14:57.320 is a stark fiery end to the combat life of a 00:14:57.320 --> 00:15:00.860 machine that had defined an entire era of aerial 00:15:00.860 --> 00:15:03.779 warfare. So what does this all mean? Well, when 00:15:03.779 --> 00:15:06.059 we look back at the Sopwith Camel, it stands 00:15:06.059 --> 00:15:08.360 as a towering testament to wartime innovation. 00:15:08.639 --> 00:15:12.220 They manufactured roughly 5 ,490 of these airframes. 00:15:12.580 --> 00:15:15.200 It was a machine that terrified its enemies and 00:15:15.200 --> 00:15:17.440 was almost equally terrifying to the people flying 00:15:17.440 --> 00:15:20.879 it. And its legacy lives on far beyond the battlefields. 00:15:20.919 --> 00:15:22.860 I mean, it was featured prominently in the classic 00:15:22.860 --> 00:15:25.519 Biggles novels. Oh, yeah. It was a flyable plane 00:15:25.519 --> 00:15:27.879 in the very first Microsoft Flight Simulator 00:15:27.879 --> 00:15:31.600 game back in 1982. And it remains culturally 00:15:31.600 --> 00:15:34.870 immortal. as Snoopy's imaginary doghouse. If 00:15:34.870 --> 00:15:37.309 we connect this to the bigger picture, the story 00:15:37.309 --> 00:15:40.289 of the camel is a fascinating lens into the evolution 00:15:40.289 --> 00:15:42.929 of technology under extreme pressure. Right. 00:15:43.289 --> 00:15:45.970 We live in a world of information overload, where 00:15:45.970 --> 00:15:48.929 modern engineering is highly sanitized, heavily 00:15:48.929 --> 00:15:52.149 regulated, and prioritized entirely around a 00:15:52.149 --> 00:15:54.649 safety first mentality. Exactly. The camel forces 00:15:54.649 --> 00:15:57.110 us to look at a very different era, an era where 00:15:57.110 --> 00:15:59.809 engineers optimized for a single variable agility 00:15:59.809 --> 00:16:02.389 and accepted terrifying life for death risks 00:16:02.389 --> 00:16:05.190 on every single flight as just the cost of doing 00:16:05.190 --> 00:16:07.590 business. And speaking of terrifying risks, I 00:16:07.590 --> 00:16:10.450 want to leave you, the learner, with one final 00:16:10.450 --> 00:16:12.909 provocative thought to mull over. This is wild. 00:16:13.429 --> 00:16:16.230 It is. Buried in the source material is a brief 00:16:16.230 --> 00:16:18.590 mention of an experimental trial that took place 00:16:18.590 --> 00:16:22.049 in the summer of 1918. The military took a single 00:16:22.049 --> 00:16:25.919 2F .1 camel and used it as a parasite fighter. 00:16:26.200 --> 00:16:29.659 A parasite fighter? Yes. They physically suspended 00:16:29.659 --> 00:16:32.100 this Sopwith Camel from the belly of a giant 00:16:32.100 --> 00:16:35.659 rigid airship, the R -23. They carried it high 00:16:35.659 --> 00:16:38.200 into the sky and dropped it in midair to see 00:16:38.200 --> 00:16:40.139 if the pilot could start the rotary engine in 00:16:40.139 --> 00:16:42.620 free fall and fly away to defend the airship. 00:16:42.720 --> 00:16:45.220 It's unbelievable. I want you to imagine the 00:16:45.220 --> 00:16:48.460 sheer psychological profile of the pilot who 00:16:48.460 --> 00:16:51.000 volunteered for that test. You have mastered 00:16:51.000 --> 00:16:53.159 a plane where the engine torque actively tries 00:16:53.159 --> 00:16:56.039 to kill you on takeoff. Where a full fuel tank 00:16:56.039 --> 00:16:58.240 throws off your center of gravity. Where the 00:16:58.240 --> 00:17:00.679 guns might blind you in the dark. You have survived 00:17:00.679 --> 00:17:03.139 the trenches and the dogfights and your next 00:17:03.139 --> 00:17:05.480 assignment is to be strapped into this gyroscopic 00:17:05.480 --> 00:17:08.339 beast suspended from a massive blimp and dropped 00:17:08.339 --> 00:17:11.000 into the sky like a bomb. What does that say 00:17:11.000 --> 00:17:13.859 about the unimaginable nerve of early 20th century 00:17:13.859 --> 00:17:15.980 aviaries compared to how we interact with our 00:17:15.980 --> 00:17:18.079 technology today? Something to think about the 00:17:18.079 --> 00:17:20.180 next time a piece of modern technology frustrates 00:17:20.180 --> 00:17:22.220 you. Absolutely. Thank you for joining us on 00:17:22.220 --> 00:17:24.759 this deep dive. It's been a privilege unpacking 00:17:24.759 --> 00:17:27.299 this history with you. Keep learning, keep questioning, 00:17:27.299 --> 00:17:28.960 and we will catch you next time.