Sopwith Tabloid

The Sopwith Tabloid and Schneider were British biplanes, originally designed as sports aircraft and later adapted for military use. They were among the first types to be built by the Sopwith Aviation Company. The "Tabloid", so named because of its small size, caused a sensation when it made its first public appearance. A floatplane variant was prepared and entered for the 1914 Schneider Trophy race. Piloted by Howard Pixton this aircraft comfortably won the competition, the floatplane variant consequently becoming known as the Sopwith Schneider. Production orders for both types were placed by the military, and although the Tabloid saw only limited service in the early years of the war, some Schneiders were still in service at the end of the war in 1918.

Design and development

The original Tabloid, which was first flown by Harry Hawker on 27 November 1913, was a two-seater single bay biplane with a side-by-side seating configuration, unusual at the time. The equal-span wings were slightly staggered and used wing warping for lateral control. The rectangular section fuselage was a conventional wire-braced wooden structure with the forward section covered in aluminium and the remainder, aft of the cockpit, covered in fabric. The control surfaces were of fabric-covered steel tubing and the undercarriage had a pair of forward-projecting skids in addition to the wheels. The most distinctive feature of the design was the engine cowling, which almost entirely enclosed the engine, cooling air being admitted through two small slots at the front. The prototype was powered by an 80 hp (60 kW) Gnome Lambda rotary engine and in a trial flown by Harry Hawker at Farnborough the Tabloid reached 92 mph (148 km/h) and took only one minute to reach 1200 ft (366 m) while carrying a passenger and enough fuel for 2½ hours. . A production order from the War Office was placed early in 1914, and a total of 40 were built.