Westland Wagtail Westland Wagtail The Westland Wagtail was a prototype British fighter aircraft of the First World War. A single-engined tractor biplane, the Wagtail was a failure owing to the unreliability of its engine, only five being built. The Westland Wagtail was designed by Westland Aircraft of Yeovil in 1917 to meet the Royal Air Force Specification IA for a light fighter with superior performance to the Sopwith Camel. Westland's design team, led by Robert Bruce, the Company's manager and Arthur Davenport, Chief Draughtsman, came up with a design for a small single bay biplane, powered (like the other competitors for the
Sopwith B.1 Sopwith B.1 The Sopwith B.1 was an experimental British bomber aircraft of the First World War. A single-seat, single-engined biplane, the B.1 was built by the Sopwith Aviation Company for the Royal Navy. Although only two were built, one was used for bombing raids over France. In late 1916, Sopwith, whose earlier 1½ Strutter had proved successful as a light bomber, (particularly when operated as a single seater), designed a new, single-engined bomber aircraft. The new bomber was developed in parallel with the Cuckoo carrier based torpedo bomber and closely resembled the Cuckoo. It, like the Cuckoo, was a compact