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 Dragon Dragon was finally declared obsolete in April 1923. Sopwith Dragon The Sopwith Dragon was a British single-seat fighter biplane developed from the Sopwith Snipe. In April 1918, the sixth Snipe prototype was fitted with a 320 hp (239 kW) ABC Dragonfly I radial engine. To compensate for the greater weight of the Dragonfly, the fuselage was lengthened by 22 in (56 cm). The prototype suffered persistent ignition system defects, but performance was encouraging when the Dragonfly engine operated properly. In June 1918, the Royal Air Force issued a contract for 30 Dragonfly-engined Snipes, which were subsequently named Dragons. In late