Fighter aircraft use "C" (Nieuport 17 C.1). Although the term "fighter" specifies aircraft designed to shoot down other aircraft, such designs are often also useful as multirole fighter-bombers, strike fighters, and sometimes lighter, fighter-sized tactical ground-attack aircraft. This has always been the case, for instance the Sopwith Camel and other "fighting scouts" of World War I performed a great deal of ground-attack work. In World War II, the USAAF and RAF often favored fighters over dedicated light bombers or dive bombers, and types such as the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt and Hawker Hurricane that were no longer competitive as aerial combat fighters were
Sopwith Type 860 Sopwith Type 860 The Sopwith Admiralty Type 860 was a 1910s British biplane seaplane torpedo bomber designed and built for the Admiralty by the Sopwith Aviation Company. First flown in December 1914 the Type 860 was an unswept biplane. The upper wings had a strut braced extension and ailerons were fitted on all four wings. It had twin strut-mounted floats under the fuselage and a float mounted under the tail and each wingtip. Some models were powered by a nose-mounted 200 hp 14-cylinder engine; others used a 225 hp (168 kW) Sunbeam Mohawk engine. Both models utilised a two-bladed propeller.