Westland Wagtail Westland Wagtail The Westland Wagtail was a prototype British fighter aircraft of the First World War. A single-engined tractor biplane, the Wagtail was a failure owing to the unreliability of its engine, only five being built. The Westland Wagtail was designed by Westland Aircraft of Yeovil in 1917 to meet the Royal Air Force Specification IA for a light fighter with superior performance to the Sopwith Camel. Westland's design team, led by Robert Bruce, the Company's manager and Arthur Davenport, Chief Draughtsman, came up with a design for a small single bay biplane, powered (like the other competitors for the
Sopwith Type 807 June 1915. Twelve Type 807s were ordered by the RNAS. Three of them formed part of the embarked air wing aboard the seaplane carrier HMS "Ark Royal" when it sailed for the Dardanelles in February 1915. They were used as reconnaissance aircraft, but proved to be underpowered, with fragile floats. Sopwith Type 807 The Sopwith Admiralty Type 807 was a 1910s British biplane seaplane designed and built for the Admiralty by the Sopwith Aviation Company. In July 1914, Sopwith produced a two-bay tractor biplane powered by a 100 hp (75 kW) Gnome Monosoupape rotary engine to compete in the 1914