Sopwith Camel

The Sopwith Camel was a British World War I single seat fighter aircraft. The Sopwith Camel was first built in 1916 by the Sopwith Aviation Company[?]. It featured a 150 h.p. Gnome 9 cylinder rotary engine, and it was armed with two Vickers .303 inch machine guns mounted in front of the cockpit, firing forward through the propeller disc. It was capable of reaching a speed of 115 mph. There was a fairing surrounding the gun installation which created a hump. It was this hump that led to the aircraft acquiring the name Camel.

The strong gyroscopic effect of the rotary engine resulted in strange handling, and the Sopwith Camel was notoriously difficult to fly in the hands of a novice (many were crashed due to mishandling on landing approach).

It was very agile in combat, though, and is probably one of the best remembered Allied aircraft of World War I. Approximately 6,000 Sopwith Camels were produced.