Past Talks : June 2024

“Bat Boat to Sea Harrier – 80 years of world-class aircraft from Kingston upon Thames”, by David Hassard

David Hassard, our speaker this evening is a Brooklands Museum volunteer who cut his aviation teeth at Westland Aircraft as a technical apprentice. He is now a joint leader in the Kingston Aviation Centenary Project. and rather knowledgeable on its history as you will gather. With that in mind, it is perhaps best to start at the end by quoting from David a piece of his closing statement, that ‘since 1912 there has constantly been a Sopwith/Hawker design in military service’. An astonishing and highly commendable fact that does not happen by accident.

It all started with T.O.M. Sopwith who bought a Howard Wright monoplane and taught himself to fly in 1910 and gained the Royal Aero Club Aviator’s Certificate, No. 31, after just 9 hours flying. TOM (aka Thomas Octave [he had 7 sisters] Murdoch) Sopwith won several flying competitions and with the prize money started the Sopwith School of Flying at Brooklands in February 1912. He charged a total fee of £75, inclusive of insurance against breakages. To maintain, overhaul and modify his four aircraft, Sopwith employed Fred Sigrist and in June 1912 Fred took on an Australian motor mechanic named Harry Hawker. At this time Fred Sigrist built a training aircraft known as the Sopwith Hybrid, due it being the best bits from a few different aircraft types. It was capable of flying with two passengers in the front cockpit.

Meanwhile, Harry Hawker lost no time in talking Sopwith into giving him discounted flying lessons, enabling him to gain his Royal Aero Club Aviator’s Certificate, No. 297. Hawker proved to be an exceptional student and a natural pilot and was soon appointed company pilot. As an aside, a Major Hugh Trenchard also learnt to fly at the Sopwith School of Flying, which enabled him to transfer to the RFC, where his career truly soared, but that is another story.

In October 1912 Sopwith registered the Sopwith Aviation Company and demonstrated the Hybrid to the Admiralty, who were impressed and bought it for £900 for their Naval School of Flying at Eastchurch. They called it Admiralty aircraft No.27. This made Sopwith an approved military contractor, so he searched around for a ready made factory, but ended up with a roller-skating rink in Kingston upon Thames. The wide roof span and level wood floor were ideal for aircraft manufacture and skilled staff were recruited from local boatbuilding and coach building companies. There was no runway, but the Flying School was only 12 miles away at Brooklands, so each aircraft built made its first journey on the back of a lorry. In the same month an ex-schoolmaster was taken on as a draughtsman. In these early days the aircraft were created on the factory floor and then drawn on paper as they progressed.

Sopwith was always keen on boats and high speed and as our speaker David put it, he bought a sleek speed boat from Saunders of Cowes and put biplane wings on top and a pusher propeller engine behind to create what became known as the ‘Bat Boat’. It created wide interest for its style and build quality. After an accident the Bat Boat was quickly rebuilt with a number of improvements, including a retractable undercarriage, thus making it into an amphibian. The factory then became extremely busy following an Admiralty order for a Bat Boat, two more three-seater Hybrids and three Anzani engined floatplanes.

Meanwhile, Sopwith aircraft continued to make sensational news headlines by winning various aviation competitions and races, plus several world height records including up to 12,900ft. This resulted in nine more sales, this time to the RFC.

Harry Hawker all the while had been hankering after a ‘stunt-bus’ and Works Order No.36 was for an 80hp tractor engined two-seater biplane. It took just 4 weeks to build, was very fast for its day at 92mph, very agile, with a terrific climb rate of 1,200 ft/minute. It soon became known as the Tabloid and by using standard sized wood, clips and metal brackets, quantity construction was easily achieved, particularly in single-seater form.

Throughout 1914, several Sopwith design variants emerged including a torpedo carrier, plus a Schneider Trophy Tabloid racer, which took everyone by surprise by winning the trophy. All this publicity resulted in yet more orders.

Ultimately World War 1 started later in 1914 and 67 aircraft were ordered for the RNAS. Even though Sopwith had acquired more adjacent land for factory space, plus a new factory at nearby Ham, the RFC were not allowed to order direct from Sopwith. In the event Sopwith could not cope with the volume of orders and the RFC simply placed orders for Sopwith aircraft with the sub-contractors. Designs included the Tabloid, the 1½ Strutter, Pup, Triplane, Camel, Cuckoo, Snipe and Salamander, all well known and acclaimed for their capability and durability in a war setting.

However, in November 1918 the war ended with Germany’s surrender. All orders for aircraft not started in construction, were immediately cancelled. The factory at Ham was sold to a motor manufacturer and in 1920, the Sopwith Aviation company closed, laid off its workforce but retained the Kingston factory premises.

In 1921, the H.G. Hawker Engineering Co Ltd opened under the Directorship of Sopwith, Hawker and Sigrist and with all the Sopwith patent rights, to build car and motorcycle bodies initially. SadlyHarry Hawker died in July 1921 test flying a Nieuport Goshawk. Sopwith and Sigrist continued the business by refurbishing Sopwith Snipes, which continued in RAF service until 1927.

In 1923 Sidney Camm joined the company and in 1925 he became Chief Designer, and one of his first tasks was to convert the the Hawker Horsely bomber from all wood construction to all metal. An interesting feature of this was his avoidance of any welding and instead using swage plates on tubes for ease of manufacture and lower cost.

The list of aircraft designed by Camm in the 1930s are familiar names to aviation enthusiasts, such as Tomtit, Hart, Fury, Nimrod, Audax, Demon, etc.. In 1934, Hawker bought the Gloster Aircraft Co., followed a year later by the acquisition of Armstrong Siddeley, from which the new Hawker Siddeley Aircraft company emerged. It is interesting to note that each of these companies continued to compete with each other for orders.

Later in 1935 Camm broke away from biplane designs to create the famous monoplane Hawker Hurricane which, in addition to having the 1,000hp RR Merlin engine, it could fly in excess of 300mph, had an an 8 gun wing armament, enclosed cockpit, plus the distinction of a retractable undercarriage. The simple steel tube and fabric covered construction enabled the Hurricane to go into production very quickly and made it a very sturdy and easily repairable war plane. Most people are now familiar with the fact that in the Battle of Britain the Hurricane shot down more enemy aircraft than the Spitfire and anti-aircraft guns combined. 15,000 Hurricanes were built in total.

Demand for production capacity continued to grow and in 1940 the Langley factory was built, along with its accompanying runway.

In 1939 the Hurricane’s successor design was well advanced in the 2000hp Hawker Typhoon, the first 400mph aircraft in service with the RAF. In the event the Typhoon performed better at lower altitudes and consequently became an extremely successful and formidable ground attack aircraft.

By 1943, the Tempest appeared as a refinement of the Typhoon, with a thin wing it was much more successful in the fighter role. It was very powerful, very fast and accounted for 680 V1 rocket motor flying bombs.

Further refinement brought about the Fury and Sea Fury design, of which 900 were built.  They took the development of propeller driven aircraft almost to the limit. Consequently as the war finished jet powered aircraft were the inevitable next step and the P1040 jet was built by Hawker in 1947, followed a year later in 1948 by the design of the delightful Sea Hawk, which flew in Royal Navy service from 1953 to 1983.

During this period the Dunsfold Aerodrome was acquired by Hawker Aircraft for development and production of the next generation aircraft, the equally handsome P1067 Hunter. It first flew in 1951 and entered service in 1953. A short time later in 1953 it took the World Speed Record at 727mph and remained in service until 1995. Nearly 2,000 Hunters were built.

In the 1960s the Government decided that manned aircraft were old-hat and that national defencewas better served by missiles alone. Fortunately, around that time, a Hawker Siddeley senior design engineer named Ralph Hooper teamed up with Gordon Lewis from Bristol Siddeley to build an airframe around the ingenious Pegasus jet engine to create the P1127, later known as the Kestrel. The Government saw sense and could not resist buying it. On entering service it became the Harrier, vertical take off aircraft. Decades later it is still regarded as a marvel and a few are still in service with the US Marines.

Ralph Hooper then proceeded to lead the Hawk design team. The Hawk has since played a significant role in training pilots from the mid-1970s, onwards and is still in production.

According to David, 45,000 aircraft of Sopwith/Hawker design have been built at the several factories that became necessary and, as previously indicated, since its start in 1912, there has been a Sopwith/Hawker designed aircraft in service every day since then. What an achievement.Thank you David Hassard and to the SOFFAAM backroom team for a most enjoyable talk. Do join us next time in the FAAM Auditorium or via Zoom. The talks are thumping good entertainment and real value for money.