AIRCRAFT COLOURS AND MARKINGS OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR ERA

No.87 Sqn RFC/RAF


Formed in early 1918, by February they had a full complement of Dolphins and were preparing to go to France. However on 23 March they flew their Dolphins to France and handed them over to depot to be issued to No.23 Sqn which was replacing their SPAD XIIIs with Dolphins. Reformed in April, No.87 then went to St.Omer on 24 April.
Initially No.87 had no unit marking and just carried individual flight letters on its aircraft. The commanding officer, Major Callaghan had an S on his Dolphin, and this was later adopted in a modified form - a horizontal 'lazy' S as the unit marking.
One interesting modification was the replacement of their centre section Lewis guns which were deemed to be "almost useless" with two Lewis guns mounted on the lower wing outboard of the propellor arc. The wing guns had their convergence set at 100 yards, while the fuselage Vickers were set at 50 yards with a slight stagger to all four guns resulting in a large area being covered within the 50-100 yard range. This was very effective and many of their aircraft were so modified.

 


Sopwith 5F1 Dolphin C4151
-
March 1918
Source: RAFM/CCI Dolphin book


Sopwith 5F1 Dolphin C4168
Maj J C Callaghan
June/July 1918
Source: Dolphin Datafile
Revised 2012



Sopwith 5F1 Dolphin C4225
Lt E B Crickmore
June-July 1918
Source: Aerodrome Modeler 4/3

Sopwith 5F1 Dolphin C8109
Lt DC Mangan
August 1918
Source: RAFM/CCI Dolphin book


Sopwith 5F1 Dolphin C8163
Capt Herbert J Larkin
August-September 1918
Source: Aerodrome Modeler 4/3

 


Sopwith 5F1 Dolphin E4587
-
Autumn 1918
Source: Datafile No.54 (Sopwith Dolphin)
Revised 2012

Sopwith 5F1 Dolphin C4136
Lt Leslie N Hollinghurst
September 1918
Source: Aerodrome Modeler 4/3