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 Gnu Sopwith Gnu The Sopwith Gnu was a 1910s British touring biplane designed and built by the Sopwith Aviation & Engineering Company of Kingston-upon-Thames. It was one of the first cabin aircraft designed for civil use. Designed for the postwar civil market, the Gnu was a conventional equal-span biplane. It had an open cockpit for a pilot with seating for two passengers under a hinged and glazed roof. Most of the aircraft were powered by a 110hp Le Rhône rotary engine. The enclosed passenger cabin was cramped and unpopular and most production aircraft had an open rear cockpit. One prototype and