Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5 Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5 The Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5 was a British biplane fighter aircraft of the First World War. It was developed at the Royal Aircraft Factory by a team consisting of Henry Folland, John Kenworthy and Major Frank Goodden. It was one of the fastest aircraft of the war, while being both stable and relatively manoeuvrable. According to aviation author Robert Jackson, the S.E.5 was: "the nimble fighter that has since been described as the 'Spitfire of World War One'". In most respects the S.E.5 had superior performance to the rival Sopwith Camel, both aircraft being capable dogfighters
Thomas Sopwith racing. Sopwith's house in Mayfair, No. 46 Green Street, where he lived from 1934 until 1940, has a blue plaque. In 1940 he moved to Warfield Hall in Berkshire which he had acquired the previous year. Sopwith's 100th birthday was marked by a flypast of military aircraft over his home, Compton Manor in King's Somborne, Hampshire. He died in Hampshire on 27 January 1989, aged 101. His grave and that of his second wife Phyllis Brodie can be found in the grounds of the 11th-century All Saints Church at Little Somborne near Winchester. Thomas Sopwith Sir Thomas Octave Murdoch Sopwith,