All machinery was sold to the Sopwith Aviation Company.

His father was an early aeronautical engineer for Sopwith aircraft during and after World War I and invented a tensometer for setting the tension on aircraft rigging wires.

The connotation of tabloid was soon applied to other small items, such as the Sopwith Tabloid aeroplane, and to the " compressed " journalism that condensed stories into a simplified, easily-absorbed format.

Tests in 1918 were disappointing as performance was only marginally better than the Sopwith 1½ Strutter which it was designed to replace, and only 312 aircraft were ordered from the firm.

Sopwith Aviation Company had a factory in the Canbury Park area of Kingston, where the famous Sopwith Camel was produced during World War I.

Another initiative was taken in the early 1990s by the developers Trafalgar Brookmount Ltd who commissioned an artist to design and produce two large brown terracotta ' gate statements '; these are located at the east end of Wellington Way and the south end of Sopwith Drive and feature representative images of Brooklands ' pre-1940 history namely the Napier-Railton, Vickers Vimy and the two former Clubhouses.

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 ).

The first British aircraft to use these gears was the Sopwith 1½ Strutter which arrived in April 1916, although some other service types were retrofitted with synchronised guns about this time, including the Nieuport 12 and the Bristol Scout.

It was the home of Ada, Lady Lovelace ( the poet Lord Byron's daughter ) and later Sir Thomas Sopwith, the aviation pioneer.

It was officially released as a " SPAD ", although the cast looks more like a Sopwith Camel.

The Canadian War Museum in Ottawa now houses a fence post that was caught in the wing of Botterell's Sopwith Camel during a low-level sortie.

On his first flight, he was assigned to ferry a Sopwith Camel from England to the western front, but crashed on the White Cliffs of Dover.

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.

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.

The Sopwith company was wound up in 1920 after the business collapsed, and in the face of a potential large demand from the government for Excess War Profits Duty.

With higher power and floats, the type evolved into the Sopwith Baby, which was a workhorse of the RNAS for much of the First World War.

Following World War I, the Sopwith Snipe was chosen as the standard fighter of the much-reduced Royal Air Force, and soldiered on until finally replaced in the late 1920s.

Sir Thomas Octave Murdoch Sopwith, CBE, Hon FRAeS ( 18 January 1888 – 27 January 1989 ) was an English aviation pioneer and yachtsman.

After Hawker's death Thomas Sopwith </ br > became Chairman of Hawker Engineering.

Hawker Pacific Aerospace's history began in 1912 with Harry Hawker asking Thomas Sopwith for flying lessons .</ br > Within a few years Hawker became Sopwith's top test pilot.

* 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.

Soon after it opened, the sheltered private location attracted early aviators and aeroplane designers such as Roe and Sopwith and the centre of the track soon became one of Britain's first aerodromes and later played a major part in aviation worldwide during much of the 20th century, most notably with the British Aerospace, British Aircraft Corporation, Hawker, Sopwith and Vickers aircraft companies.

Biggles has an unusually lengthy career, flying a number of aircraft representative of the history of British military aviation, from Sopwith Camels during World War I, Hawker Hurricanes and Supermarine Spitfires in World War II, right up to the Hawker Hunter jet fighter in a postwar adventure ( Biggles in the Terai ).

Upon the liquidation of the Sopwith company, Tom Sopwith himself, together with Harry Hawker, Fred Sigrist and Bill Eyre, immediately formed H. G.

Sopwith became chairman of the new firm, Hawker Aircraft.

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.

Harry Hawker, Tom Sopwith, Fred Sigrist, and Bill Eyre then formed a new company, each contributing £ 5, 000.

) 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.

* Sopwith Camel flown by Harry Hawker

* Harry Hawker, aviation pioneer pre-World War I and Sopwith Aviation Company chief test pilot.

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.

The Allies did not field an aircraft with twin synchronized guns until the Sopwith Camel and the SPAD S. XIII came into service in mid-1917.

The British Royal Flying Corps and the U. S. Army Air Service saw " trench strafing " as another task for ordinary pursuit or fighter aircraft, such as the Airco DH. 5 and Sopwith Camel, and did not seek out specialized units or equipment until the late months of the war.

The first British " tractor " to be specifically design to be fitted with synchronization gear was the Sopwith 1½ Strutter which did not enter service until early 1916.

The Pup soon became outclassed in air combat, however, and No. 54 concentrated on ground attack missions until it could re-equip with Sopwith Camels in December 1917, allowing to return to fighter duties, providing protection for Army co-operation squadrons.

However, serious interest in military aviation did not develop until after World War I. Japanese military observers in Europe were quick to spot the advantages of the new technology, and after the end of the war, Japan purchased large numbers of surplus military aircraft, including Sopwith 1½ Strutters, Nieuport Bebes, and Spads.

The estate remained in the Brown-Gilpin family until being sold to Tommy Sopwith after the First World War.

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.

British scout aircraft, in this sense, included the Sopwith Tabloid and Bristol Scout.

The Sopwith L. R. T. Tr.

The Albatros D. I and Sopwith Pup of 1916 set the classic pattern followed by fighters for about twenty years.

By 1913 there were four planes, now including a British Sopwith and long term plans to create six naval air stations by 1918.

* December 22 – The British Sopwith Camel aircraft makes its maiden flight.

* January 18 – Thomas Sopwith, British aviation pioneer and yachtsman ( d. 1989 )

* Sopwith T. 1 Cuckoo, a British biplane torpedo bomber of 1918

Due to the drag, however, as with biplanes, this type is obsolete and almost never used except in recreations, such as the Fokker Dr. I and Sopwith Triplane.

After World War I the government canceled all orders with Sopwith leaving him in financial ruins.

Reproduction of a Sopwith Camel biplane flown by George Augustus Vaughn, Jr. | Lt. George A. Vaughn Jr., 17th Aero Squadron

Examples of negative stagger include the Airco DH. 5, Sopwith Dolphin, and the Beechcraft Staggerwing.