Sopwith Snipe Herbert Smith, the chief designer of the Sopwith Company, began to design a fighter intended to be the replacement for Sopwith's most famous aeroplane, the successful Sopwith Camel. The resultant design, called Snipe by Sopwith, was in its initial form a single-bay biplane, slightly smaller than the Camel, and intended to be powered by similar engines. The pilot sat higher than in the Camel while the centre-section of the upper wing was uncovered, giving a better view from the cockpit. Armament was to be two Vickers machine guns. In the absence of an official order, Sopwith began construction of two
Thomas-Morse MB-3 Thomas-Morse MB-3 The Thomas-Morse MB-3 was an open-cockpit biplane fighter primarily manufactured by the Boeing Company for the U.S. Army Air Service in 1922. The MB-3A was the mainstay fighter for the Air Service between 1922 and 1925. In March 1918, the United States Army Air Service requested several American aircraft manufacturers to design a new fighter, to be powered by a water-cooled Wright-Hispano H, a license-built Hispano-Suiza 8, to replace the French-built SPAD XIII. The Thomas-Morse Aircraft Corporation of Ithaca, New York proposed the MB-3, designed by its British-born chief designer B. Douglas Thomas, to meet this requirement, with