Lt. Cowan flew the famous Sopwith Camel in 1918. It is said and it is true that the Camel killed more pilots than the German’s. The Camel had a rotary engine that rotated with the prop. The torque produced from the spinning engine and propeller was deadly to many low time pilots who had just learned to fly. The typical training aircraft of the time had a standard inline engine, which did not produce the torque effect that the rotary engine did. An unfamiliar pilot could easily find himself in a deadly spin with the Camel if he did not compensate correctly with rudder in right hand turns. This was the case of Cowan and the results were a cracked up plane.
The cane seat and bent rudder is from Lt. Cowan’s Sopwith Camel, #D6429 that he crash-landed in 1918. He was one of the lucky few, who survived these circumstances.
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