Thomas Sopwith Flying at Brooklands. In June 1912 Sopwith, along with Fred Sigrist and others, set up the Sopwith Aviation Company, initially at Brooklands. On 24 October 1912 using a Wright Model B completely rebuilt by Sopwith and fitted with an ABC 40 hp engine, Harry Hawker took the British Michelin Endurance prize with a flight of 8h 23m. Sopwith Aviation got its first military aircraft order in November 1912, and in December moved to larger premises in Kingston upon Thames. The company produced more than 18,000 World War I aircraft for the allied forces, including 5747 of the Sopwith Camel single-seat
Sopwith B.1 Sopwith B.1 The Sopwith B.1 was an experimental British bomber aircraft of the First World War. A single-seat, single-engined biplane, the B.1 was built by the Sopwith Aviation Company for the Royal Navy. Although only two were built, one was used for bombing raids over France. In late 1916, Sopwith, whose earlier 1½ Strutter had proved successful as a light bomber, (particularly when operated as a single seater), designed a new, single-engined bomber aircraft. The new bomber was developed in parallel with the Cuckoo carrier based torpedo bomber and closely resembled the Cuckoo. It, like the Cuckoo, was a compact