Word: sopwith
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...pilots of Sopwith Tabloids, French Nieuports and German Taubes opened the age of aerial combat by taking potshots at one another with rifles in the skies of World War I Europe. But the first military function of aircraft in that war was gathering intelligence. Tiny, unarmed biplanes scurried behind enemy lines to spy out troop dispositions and act as airborne forward artillery observers. Warfare has grown immensely more complex in the half-century since then, but gathering intelligence nonetheless remains one of the airplane's most significant and fascinating functions...
Died. Captain W. E. Johns, 75, the portly English author who created Biggies, a World War I flying ace whose daredevil exploits and incorruptible character thrilled a worldwide audience of 20 million readers; of pulmonary thrombosis; in Hampton Court, England. Writing of swirling aerial duels between Biggies' Sopwith Camel and les boches was second nature to Johns, since he had tangled with them himself during the war, was shot down, captured and twice escaped. That stiff-upper-lip quality endured-as one government official learned during a recent inquiry of the captain. Could Biggies be given a few socialist...
...Airport last week, the temptation to snap a ghostly salute was nearly irresistible. There, wing to wing, were the great ones of World War I: the DeHavilland D.H.4 Eberhardt S.E. 5a, Nieuport 28, Pfalz D-XII and Fokker D-VII. And right near by sat a green and cream Sopwith Camel-the type that downed the Red Baron-with a cutout figure of that daredevil, Snoopy, as the Baron's fearless foe, everyone surely knows. The occasion: an auction of 29 veteran and vintage planes, from a tricycle-wheeled 1910 Parker Curtiss Pusher to such recent classics as World...
...Mystery Ship, Hell!" The bidding would have brought a cheer from the Lafayette Escadrille. Top price was for a Sopwith Camel, believed to be the last original, which went to Manhattan Stockbroker J. W. Middendorf II for $40,000 (it cost $8,000 new in 1918). Second highest price was $20,500 for an immaculate 1927 Curtiss Gulf hawk 1 A. The buyer: Korean War Pilot Dolph Overton, 40, who already has 40 vintage aircraft in his Santee, S.C., aircraft museum. Overton plans to fly the Gulfhawk, just as Race-Car Builder-Driver (Chaparral) Jim Hall expects to take...
Compulsive Gamble. Like Lipton and Sopwith, Australia's Sir Frank Packer is a tough, determined competitor. Asked why he had challenged for the cup, Packer replied: "Alcohol and delusions of grandeur." Lusty and lantern-jawed, a onetime prizefighter and lifelong yachtsman, Packer is known at home as a ruthless, tight-fisted publisher who once laced out a reporter for spending 6/ of his boss's money on a tram ride to an assignment-Packer told him to walk. Employees on his five newspapers (among them: the Sydney Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph), three magazines and two TV stations...