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Description

The long-established woodworking company, Frederick Sage and Co, which specialised in shopfitting, set up an aircraft department in early 1915, hiring the well known test pilot and designer, Eric Gordon England, to lead the department, and recruiting Clifford Tinson, formerly deputy to Frank Barnwell at the Bristol Aeroplane Company early in 1916.

Tinson's first design for Sage was a two-seat fighter aircraft, the Sage Type 2. It was a small wood-and-fabric tractor biplane (in fact the two-seat Sage was smaller than many single-seaters of the time), with single-bay wings. The pilot and gunner sat in an enclosed, glazed cabin that filled the gap between the fuselage and upper wing. Because of the lack of effective gun synchronising gear to allow a fixed gun to fire through the propeller disc, a hole was cut in the upper wing above the gunners seat, so the gunner could stand with head and shoulders above the wing, giving him a good all-round field of fire for his Lewis gun, including forward over the propeller. The aircraft was powered by a Gnome Monospoupape rotary engine driving a four-bladed propeller.

The prototype first flew on 10 August 1916, and demonstrated good performance and manoeuvrability, being easy to fly. It was wrecked in a crash landing during a test flight at Cranwell on 20 September 1916 after the rudder post failed. No further development was carried out, as by this time, effective synchronising gear was available to the British, and the Sopwith Strutter was already in service.

Description

The long-established woodworking company, Frederick Sage and Co, which specialised in shopfitting, set up an aircraft department in early 1915, hiring the well known test pilot and designer, Eric Gordon England, to lead the department, and recruiting Clifford Tinson, formerly deputy to Frank Barnwell at the Bristol Aeroplane Company early in 1916.

Tinson's first design for Sage was a two-seat fighter aircraft, the Sage Type 2. It was a small wood-and-fabric tractor biplane (in fact the two-seat Sage was smaller than many single-seaters of the time), with single-bay wings. The pilot and gunner sat in an enclosed, glazed cabin that filled the gap between the fuselage and upper wing. Because of the lack of effective gun synchronising gear to allow a fixed gun to fire through the propeller disc, a hole was cut in the upper wing above the gunners seat, so the gunner could stand with head and shoulders above the wing, giving him a good all-round field of fire for his Lewis gun, including forward over the propeller. The aircraft was powered by a Gnome Monospoupape rotary engine driving a four-bladed propeller.

The prototype first flew on 10 August 1916, and demonstrated good performance and manoeuvrability, being easy to fly. It was wrecked in a crash landing during a test flight at Cranwell on 20 September 1916 after the rudder post failed. No further development was carried out, as by this time, effective synchronising gear was available to the British, and the Sopwith Strutter was already in service.