Thomas Sopwith Flying at Brooklands. In June 1912 Sopwith, along with Fred Sigrist and others, set up the Sopwith Aviation Company, initially at Brooklands. On 24 October 1912 using a Wright Model B completely rebuilt by Sopwith and fitted with an ABC 40 hp engine, Harry Hawker took the British Michelin Endurance prize with a flight of 8h 23m. Sopwith Aviation got its first military aircraft order in November 1912, and in December moved to larger premises in Kingston upon Thames. The company produced more than 18,000 World War I aircraft for the allied forces, including 5747 of the Sopwith Camel single-seat
Sopwith Aviation Company were bought by a new company H.G. Hawker Engineering . The Sopwith Aviation Company (based at Brooklands) was created in June 1912 by Thomas Octave Murdoch (Tommy, later Sir Thomas) Sopwith, a wealthy sportsman interested in aviation, yachting and motor-racing, when he was 24 years old. Following their first military aircraft sale in November 1912, Sopwith moved to the company's first factory premises which opened that December in a recently closed roller skating rink in Canbury Park Road near Kingston Railway Station in South West London. An early collaboration with the S. E. Saunders boatyard of East Cowes on the