Sopwith Camel

Was into building model airplanes with a particular interest in planes from World War I.

Ah, the Sopwith Camel?

He's the one that suggested to his dad that Snoopy fight the Red Baron.

So that's where that came from.

Of all sports that offer high hazard to thrill-satiated war pilots, that of hedge-hopping or contour-chasing occupies first place.

This is particularly true when the pilot is flying a Sopwith Camel powered by the temperamental Clerget motor with its malfunctioning wind-driven gasoline pump.

The sport had been repeatedly forbidden by all the Allied air commands, but these commands had to deal with irrepressible youth, which has slight regard for doddering old mossbacks who think that a plane should be handled as a wheelchair.

Larkin dived at the ground like a hawk that has sighted some napping rodent, and so near did he come that by the time he had leveled off his wheels were almost touching the ground, and wheels must not touch when one is screaming through space at the rate of 140 miles per hour.

Eh, what?" [laughs] He says to nobody.

And then he gets up top the doghouse and yells, "Contact!" And it begins, "Here I am in my Sopwith Camel, flying high over France.

I scan the air carefully, searching for the Red Baron.

I must bring him down." And Snoopy glances down around 2:00, and he says, "Aha, there he is." [laughs] And the battle commences.

"This time I've got you, Red Baron.

This time you're mine." His teeth are gritted as he flies and fires at the Red Baron.

[laughs] And he continues, "Take that, and that, and that, and that, and ... " And then suddenly we see Snoopy's Sopwith Camel.

The doghouse is riddled with bullets, and it's ... [laughs] The engine is apparently smoking, 'cause black billowing clouds are pouring out of the doghouse.

You douche.

Uh, I got to fly the Sopwith Camel.

That was pretty fun.

And Angie had the Albatross III.

So all my cards had different Red Baron, uh, you know, Fokker planes on it, uh, doing different things, uh, you know.

Uh, yep.

Mine was a Sopwith Camel.

Of course, the aerial maneuvers, um, like, uh, evasive, evasive di- uh, uh, diving-

But I have personally never written to an editor.

The question for today in the trivia is this: What type of airplane did Snoopy imagine his doghouse becoming when he battled the Red Baron? The answer is a Sopwith Camel.

Snoopy first became a World War I flying ace in 1965, imagining battles against the Red Baron.

The character later inspired the 1966 hit Snoopy vs. the Red Baron.

transport plane in World War I.

It's the Sopwith Camel.

With Snoopy.

That's what it sounds like.

Yeah,

the Red Baron.

That was his plane, the Sopwith Camel.

That's great.

...

Sopwith Camel.

[laughs]

Yeah, jumped in his Sopwith Camel.

[laughs] Jumped in his, uh...

What was the, uh, the Kitty Hawk one that we saw at the space museum, lying down.