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 tractor biplane, powered by a 200 hp (149 kW) Hispano-Suiza water-cooled engine. Unlike the Cuckoo, the bomber's two-bay wings did not fold. It was designed as a single-seat aircraft, with the pilot sitting in a cockpit under the wing centre section to give a good view forwards and downwards for bombing. The aircraft bombload of up to 560 lb (255 kg) was carried vertically within the fuselage, in cells behind the pilot. While no orders followed from either the Admiralty, whose needs for a single-engined bomber had been met by the Airco DH.4 or the Royal Flying Corps, Sopwith obtained