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Kingston Aviation The Kingston Centenary Project This Kingston Aviation Centenary Project website celebrates the achievements of the 30,000 or more individuals who designed and built aircraft for the Sopwith, Hawker, Hawker Siddeley and British Aerospace organisations based in Kingston upon Thames from 1912 to 1992. Some 18,000 Sopwith designed aircraft were built by 1920 […]
1918
A day by day diary of the Sopwith Aviation Company and its products through 1918 Summary of Sopwith’s status on 1st January 1918 The Sopwith factory delivered 849 new aircraft in 1917, more than twice their 374 in 1916 and bringing the total number of aircraft built in Kingston so far to 1,462. The number […]
1916
The week by week story of the Sopwith Aviation Company and its products through 1916 The Sopwith Aviation Company starts 1916 with its Kingston factory full of Sopwith Baby floatplanes, the first five in this photograph fitted with their 110hp Clerget engines ready for delivery. The other six are apparently complete waiting for floats and […]
1917
A diary of the Sopwith Aviation Company and its products through 1917 The four-year-old Sopwith Aviation Company goes into 1917 as a significant designer and supplier of front line fighter aircraft to both the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Flying Corps. Over 400 of the innovative Sopwith ‘1½ Strutters’, ‘Pups’ and ‘Triplanes’ developed […]
Ron Pullen Six
Name: Ron Pullen Transcript: 5 Harmonizing the guns of a Hurricane Before joining the Royal Air Force, Ron’s last job for Hawker was working on the armament of the Hurricane and he here describes the process of harmonizing the guns. After its success in the Battle of Britain, the Hurricane was re-invented as a […]
1914
A diary of Sopwith Aviation Company activities through 1914 On 1st January 1914 the cover of Aeroplane magazine celebrates the achievements of 1913. Sopwith types feature in three of the pictures. A year ago the Sopwith Aviation Company had only built one aeroplane. No-one could have predicted such prominence in such a short time and […]
