.....from an original by Sopwith

By David Fleming

A number of aircraft appeared during the Great War which owed their origin to the designs of the Sopwith Aircraft Company. Although not known as 'Sopwith', these machines deserve to be mentioned in the Sopwith Cook-Up, as they undoubtably show their 'Sopwith' heritage.

Fairey Hamble Baby

Fairey Aviation built a number of Sopwith Baby floatplanes at it's Hamble works. In an attempt to improve the design, Fairy fitted a new design of wing to the original baby fuselage. A production order for this aircraft was forthcoming, and the 'new' design called the Hamble Baby. Parnall also produced Hamble Babies, which had some detail differences from the Fairey produced aircraft. Windsock Datafile 60 has more details.

Modelling : Like the originals,the Hamble Babies can be built from the existing Sopwith Baby kits with the addition of scratchbuilt wings. For details of Baby kits, see the main Sopwith listings.

Port Victoria PV1

The PV1 was a modified Sopwith Schneider (3742), fitted with high lift wings at the RNAS Experimental depot at Port Victoria, Isle of Grain. The PV1 did not enter production, but was used in a variety of experiments.

Modelling : The PV1 can be built by modifying one of the exisiting Schneider kits.

Beardmore WB III

The Scottish company of Beardmore produced a large number of aircraft under sub- contract during WW1 (Sopwith Pup, Neiuport 12 amongst others). They also produced some 'in-house designs. Most of these did not enter production, but one type which was ordered was the WB111. This was a development of the Sopwith Pup for shipboard use. The WB111 eliminated the Pup' staggered wings, and had additional interplane struts at the wing roots to enable structural integrity when the wings were folded. The fuselage was also lengthened. The undercarriage could also be folded or dropped. 100 WB111s were produced.

Modelling :The WB111 can of course be converted from any Pup kit, but for 1/72nd modellers, Joystick produce a nice vacform kit.