Thomas Sopwith

Sir Thomas Octave Murdoch Sopwith CBE ( born January 18, 1888 in Kensington, † January 27, 1989 in Hampshire ) was an aviation pioneer, entrepreneur and yachtsman.

Life

Sopwith was the eighth child and only son of a construction engineer. He went in Hove and in Lee-on -Solent to school. His love of flying was born when he was an eyewitness to the first channel crossing with an airline passenger who succeeded John Moisant. He went to Brooklands and first flew with Gustav Blondeau. After that, he taught himself to fly. The first time he flew on 31 October 1910 it fell down, but was uninjured. Sopwith finally gained the flight leader license No. 31 of the Royal Aero Club on 22 November 1910.

Already on December 18, 1910 he succeeded in a competition the longest flight from the UK to the mainland in a British airplane. He flew in 3 hours and 40 minutes for a distance of about 270 kilometers up to Beaumont in Belgium, which earned him £ 4,000 prize money. This he invested in creating their own flight school, the Sopwith School of Flying at Brooklands.

Sopwith met in June 1912 along with Fred Sigrist and, together with some others, the Sopwith Aviation Company, which was a major supplier of fighter planes during World War II. The most famous is the Sopwith Camel. For his personal use in 1918 he received the Order of Commander of the Order of the British Empire ( CBE).

After production of over 16,000 aircraft, the Sopwith company was liquidated in 1920. Shortly thereafter, Harry Hawker, Thomas Sopwith, Fred Sigist and Bill Eyre founded in equal parts the HG Hawker Engineering, later Hawker Aircraft Ltd..

In 1934 and 1937, Sopwith with its yachts Endeavour and Endeavour II in the America's Cup in part. In 1953 he was knighted.

After Hawker Siddeley was nationalized, Sopwith remained until the 80 's of the last century advisor to the company.

Sopwith died a few days after his 101st birthday. His grave is in the churchyard of All Saints Church on the Isle of Wight.