VH-NHD / B-1727 / 2 Sopwith Pup named ‘Normie’, owned by Bert Filippi, at the Sport Aircraft Builders Club (SABC) Annual Fly-In, Serpentine Airfield, Western Australia – 23 October 2023. After USAF Colonel Harold Schultz decided to build an exact replica of the Sopwith Pup, he started to collect original parts, including an 80 hp Le Rhône rotary engine. The collecting and initial building took 25 years, however, deteriorating eyesight forced Schultz to abandon the project, and handed it over to Bert Filippi in Australia. The replica was finished by Fred Murrin over a five year period, and was given the color scheme and markings of the Sopwith Pup with RFC s/n B1727, that was named ‘Normie’ after Second Lieutenant Norman Herford Dimmock who normally flew the B1727 on the western front. While flown by another pilot, B1727 crashed in France on October 28 1917. Dimmock kept the windshield and joystick, which he donated to Schultz many decades later. As a tribute to Norman Herford Dimmock, the aircraft was registered VH-NHD, and was flown for the first time by Bert Filippi at Jandakot, near Perth Western Australia on March 4, 2010. While almost all parts in VH-NHD are original of that era, including the propeller and the 80hp Le Rhone rotary engine, only the windshield and the joystick are from B-1727. For that reason it is registered as a replica, but even to the most discerning eye, this aircraft cannot be distinguished from a Sopwith Scout out of the Standard Aviation Factory in Sutton in 1917. A far cry from other aircraft registered as Sopwith Pups, which have radial engines, steel fuselage, modern fabric not to mention tail wheels and brakes. Photo © David Eyre