Sopwith Snipe Herbert Smith, the chief designer of the Sopwith Company, began to design a fighter intended to be the replacement for Sopwith's most famous aeroplane, the successful Sopwith Camel. The resultant design, called Snipe by Sopwith, was in its initial form a single-bay biplane, slightly smaller than the Camel, and intended to be powered by similar engines. The pilot sat higher than in the Camel while the centre-section of the upper wing was uncovered, giving a better view from the cockpit. Armament was to be two Vickers machine guns. In the absence of an official order, Sopwith began construction of two
Sopwith Buffalo Sopwith Buffalo The Sopwith Buffalo was a British armoured fighter/reconnaissance aircraft of the First World War. A single-engined biplane, two examples of the Buffalo were built by Sopwith to carry out reconnaissance missions low over the trenches while protected against machine-gun fire from the ground, but no production followed, with the end of the war removing the need for such an aircraft. In July 1918, the British Air Ministry requested Sopwith, who was already building the Sopwith Salamander armoured single-seat ground attack fighter, to build an armoured two-seat aircraft to carry out the dangerous contact patrol mission. This mission involved