Sopwith Swallow Sopwith Swallow The Sopwith Swallow was a British parasol wing fighter aircraft of the First World War. A single example was built, but it saw no production, offering no performance advantages over contemporary biplanes. In June 1918, the Sopwith Aviation Company flew an unarmed parasol monoplane derivative of the Sopwith Camel, the Sopwith Monoplane No. 1, also known as the Sopwith Scooter. It used a normal Camel fuselage, with the wing mounted just above the fuselage, with a very small gap. The wing was braced using RAF-wire (streamlined bracing wires) to a pyramid shaped cabane above the wing. It was
Thomas Sopwith Thomas Sopwith Sir Thomas Octave Murdoch Sopwith, CBE, Hon FRAeS (18 January 1888 – 27 January 1989) was an English aviation pioneer, business executive and yachtsman. Sopwith was born in Kensington, London on 18 January 1888. He was the eighth child and only son of Thomas Sopwith (a civil engineer and managing director of the Spanish Lead Mines Company, Linares, Jaén, Spain) and his wife Lydia Gertrude née Messiter. He was a grandson of mining engineer Thomas Sopwith. He was educated at Cottesmore School in Hove and at Seafield Park engineering college in Hill Head. When he was ten years