page_title: Sopwith Pup
section_title: Shipboard use
hierarchical_section_title: Sopwith Pup / Operational history / Shipboard use
caption_attribution_description: IWM caption&#160;: Squadron Commander E H Dunning attempting to land his Sopwith Pup on the flying-off deck of HMS FURIOUS, Scapa Flow, 7 August 1917. He was killed when his aircraft veered off the flight deck and into the sea. See File:Dunning killed on second carrier landing IWM Q 80597.jpg for following photograph.
context_page_description: The Sopwith Pup was a British single-seater biplane fighter aircraft built by the Sopwith Aviation Company. It entered service with the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service in the autumn of 1916. With pleasant flying characteristics and good manoeuvrability, the aircraft proved very successful. The Pup was eventually outclassed by newer German fighters, but it was not completely replaced on the Western Front until the end of 1917. Remaining Pups were relegated to Home Defence and training units. The Pup's docile flying characteristics also made it ideal for use in aircraft carrier deck landing and takeoff experiments.
context_section_description: Sopwith Pups were also used in many pioneering carrier experiments. On 2 August 1917, a Pup flown by Sqn Cdr Edwin Dunning became the first aircraft to land aboard a moving ship, HMS Furious. Dunning was killed on his third landing when the Pup fell over the side of the ship. The Pup began operations on the carriers in early 1917; the first aircraft were fitted with skid undercarriages in place of the standard landing gear. Landings utilised a system of deck wires to "trap" the aircraft. Later versions reverted to the normal undercarriage. Pups were used as ship-based fighters on three carriers: HMS Campania, Furious and Manxman. A number of other Pups were deployed to cruisers and battleships where they were launched from platforms attached to gun turrets. A Pup flown from a platform on the cruiser HMS Yarmouth shot down the German Zeppelin L 23 off the Danish coast on 21 August 1917.
  The U.S. Navy also employed the Sopwith Pup with famed Australian/British test pilot Edgar Percival testing the use of carrier-borne fighters. In 1926, Percival was catapulted in a Pup off the battleship USS Idaho at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
caption: Sqn Cdr E. H. Dunning attempting a landing on HMS Furious in a Sopwith Pup (August 1917)
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