All machinery was sold to the Sopwith Aviation Company.

In February 1912, Thomas Sopwith opened his Sopwith School of Flying and, that June, Sopwith, with several others, set up the Sopwith Aviation Company here, although their main premises were at Kingston upon Thames.

* Sir Thomas Sopwith, ( 1888 – 1989 ), aviation pioneer and industrialist who founded the Sopwith Aviation, H G Hawker Engineering, Hawker Aircraft and Hawker Siddeley aircraft companies, lived at Compton House, Cobham in the 1920s.

In that same year, a collaboration between the S. E. Saunders boatyard of East Cowes and the Sopwith Aviation Company produced the " Bat Boat ", an aircraft with a consuta laminated hull that could operate from land or on water, which today we call amphibious aircraft.

After leaving school he joined the Sopwith Aviation Company in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, as one of its first apprentices and no doubt also worked in the Sopwith sheds at the nearby Brooklands aerodrome and racing circuit.

The Sopwith Aviation Company was a British aircraft company that designed and manufactured aeroplanes mainly for the British Royal Naval Air Service, Royal Flying Corps and later Royal Air Force in the First World War, most famously the Sopwith Camel.

cs: Sopwith Aviation Company

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de: Sopwith Aviation Company

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no: Sopwith Aviation Company Ltd.

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In June 1912 Sopwith with Fred Sigrist and others set up The Sopwith Aviation Company.

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During this time he spent much of his spare time at Brooklands, then the hub of British aviation, and in June 1912 he got a job as a mechanic for the Sopwith Aviation Company.

) As Tom Sopwith put it: to avoid any muddle if we had gone on building aeroplanes and called them Sopwiths — there was bound to be a muddle somewhere — we called the company the Hawker Company.

# redirect Sopwith Aviation Company

When Trenchard arrived at Thomas Sopwith's flying school at Brooklands, he told Sopwith than he only had 10 days to gain his aviator's certificate.

The Sopwith Dolphin, a " multi-gun " fighter design entering operational service at the end of World War I, featured an armament setup of two forward-firing Vickers machine guns in the usual location just forward of the cockpit, but also had the provision to mount a pair of Lewis machine guns located on the forward cross-tube that comprised part of the cabane strut structure, and intended to be aimed forwards and upwards as an anti-Zeppelin armament scheme.

Urgently required Sopwith 1½ Strutter two-seaters had to be transferred from the planned RNAS strategic bombing force to RFC squadrons on the Western Front because the Sopwith firm were contracted to supply the RNAS exclusively.

At Sopwiths in 1916, Hawker had the personal use of a small aircraft, the Sopwith Bee.

In 1914, Harry Hawker returned to Australia to demonstrate the advanced Sopwith Tabloid, which he had helped design.

* August 11 – After taking off in a Sopwith Camel from a barge towed behind the destroyer HMS Redoubt, Royal Air Force Flight Sub-Lieutenant Stuart Culley shoots down the Imperial German Navy Zeppelin L 53, which had been flying a scouting mission over the North Sea.

Football ground writer Simon Inglis had described the view from the stand as " like watching football from the cockpit of a Sopwith Camel " because of its antiquated supports and struts.

New types such as the Sopwith 1½ Strutter had to be transferred from production intended for the RNAS.

Since September 1916, the Germans had held the upper hand in the perpetual contest for air supremacy on the Western Front, with the twin-lMG 08 machine gun-armed Albatros D. II and D. III outclassing the British and French fighters charged with protecting the vulnerable B. E. 2c, F. E. 2b and Sopwith 1½ Strutter two-seater reconnaissance and bomber machines.

From May 9 to June 1, 1925 No. 32 Squadron RAF flew an air display six nights a week entitled " London Defended " Similar to the display they had done the previous year when the aircraft were painted black it consisted of a night time air display over the Wembley Exhibition flying RAF Sopwith Snipes which were painted red for the display and fitted with white lights on the wings tail and fuselage.

The earliest version of Microsoft Flight Simulator ( 1982 ) had crude graphics, simple flight models – and a combat option, with " dog fighting " in a World War I Sopwith Camel.

During the First World War the company was contracted to build 600 aircraft at the Acton factory ( 50 Royal Aircraft Factory R. E. 7, 400 Royal Aircraft Factory R. E. 8 and 150 Sopwith Snipes ).

These later jet types were manufactured in the same factory buildings used to produce Sopwith Snipes in 1918.

A Royal Flying Corps ( RFC ) aerodrome at Bracebridge Heath originally opened in 1916 for use by the Robey-Peters aircraft factory, in the manufacture and flight testing of their own designs and licence-built Sopwith aircraft.

Many of the roads in the area have aviation-related names: Alcock Road ( Alcock and Brown ), Brabazon Road ( Brabazon ), Bleriot Road ( Louis Blériot ), Cobham Road ( Sir Alan Cobham ), De Havilland Road ( de Havilland ), Norman Crescent ( Nigel Norman ), Phoenix Way ( Heston Phoenix ), Sopwith Road ( Thomas Sopwith ), Spitfire Way ( Supermarine Spitfire ), Whittle Road ( Frank Whittle ), and Wright Road ( the Wright brothers ).

The company was founded in Kingston upon Thames by Thomas Octave Murdoch ( Tommy, later Sir Thomas ) Sopwith, a well-to-do gentleman sportsman interested in aviation, yachting and motor-racing, in June 1912, when Sopwith was only 24 years old.

A wild crowd nearly wrecked the plane on one occasion, and he further damaged it during stunt flying, so he went back to England, where he remained throughout the First World War, designing and testing production aircraft with Sopwith.

In 1913, Hinkler went to England where he worked for the Sopwith Aviation Company, the beginning of his career in aviation.

The type was ordered by both the RFC and RNAS, but in the event the RFC traded theirs for another type and the Sopwith saw service only with the RNAS, where it served with success.

The Pup began the famous series of animal-named Sopwith aircraft during the war, which, as a whole, would become renowned in aviation history as " The Flying Zoo ".

The company produced more than 18, 000 British World War I aircraft for the allied forces, including 5747 of the famous Sopwith Camel single-seat fighter.

What is perhaps the most famous of all nose art, the shark-face insignia made famous by the American Volunteer Group Flying Tigers, also first appeared in World War I on a British Sopwith Dolphin and a German Roland C. II, though often with an effect more comical than menacing.

The famous Sopwith Camel and the SPAD XIII types used twin synchronized Vickers, as did most British and French fighters between 1918 and the mid 1930s.

Many of the famous German, British, and French combat aircraft of World War I are available to fly including the Fokker E. I Eindecker, the Fokker Dr. I Triplane, the Sopwith Camel, and the SPAD XIII.

In 1935, J. D. Siddeley's interests were purchased for £ 2 million by Tommy Sopwith owner of Hawker Aircraft to form Hawker Siddeley, a famous name in British aircraft production.

Many of the famous German, British, and French combat aircraft of World War I are available to fly including the Fokker E. III, the Fokker Dr. I Triplane, the Sopwith Camel, the RAF S. E. 5a, and the SPAD XIII.

The first land releases were located between three roads named in honour of famous fighter planes-Mustang Drive, Sopwith Avenue and Spitfire Drive.