The Owls Head Transportation Museum in Owls Head, Maine has performed the first engine test on their newly acquired Sopwith Pup reproduction.
The aircraft was assembled by Brian Coughlin and features a steel tube fuselage constructed by Dana Narkunas and restored wing panels originally built by noted WW1 aircraft builder Carl Swanson. Powered by an original Le Rhone rotary engine, the machine made its debut at the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome last year.
The recent acquisition was made in a frame-for-frame trade for the museum’s previous Sopwith Pup, a reproduction built by Dick King in the 1960s which was a regular performer at Old Rhinebeck throughout the 1970s. Coughlin is now in the process of restoring this machine (see The Flying Machine #6 for additional details).
Owls Head retained the Le Rhone engine from the King Pup and installed it in this new example. It is expected to return to the air this year.
Click below to check out a video of the test.
She's alive!!
(1916 Sopwith Pup)
Posted by Owls Head Transportation Museum on Thursday, March 15, 2018
