The Sopwith Admiralty Type C was an early British

floatplane A floatplane is a type of seaplane with one or more slender floats mounted under the fuselage to provide buoyancy. By contrast, a flying boat uses its fuselage for buoyancy. Either type of seaplane may also have landing gear suitable for land, ...

designed and built by

Sopwith Aviation The Sopwith Aviation Company was a British aircraft company that designed and manufactured aeroplanes mainly for the British Royal Naval Air Service, the Royal Flying Corps and later the Royal Air Force during the First World War, most famously ...

to drop torpedoes. A single engined tractor

biplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...

floatplane, three were delivered to the Royal Navy in November 1914 but proved unable to lift a torpedo.

Design and development

The Admiralty had ordered a special torpedo carrying biplane (the

Sopwith Special torpedo seaplane Type C The Sopwith Special torpedo seaplane Type C was the first British aircraft designed to drop torpedoes. A single-engine biplane floatplane, it flew in July 1914 but proved unable to lift the design load and was soon abandoned. Design and dev ...

serial number A serial number is a unique identifier assigned incrementally or sequentially to an item, to ''uniquely'' identify it. Serial numbers need not be strictly numerical. They may contain letters and other typographical symbols, or may consist enti ...

''170'') in February 1914 and followed it with an order in July 1914 for three similar Type C floatplanes (serial numbers 157, 158 and 159). The specification called for folding wings, bomb gear, a gun and radio. Work started at the Sopwith factory at Kingston-upon-Thames on 5 April 1914 and the three Type Cs, powered by a Salmson (Canton-Uneé) piston engine, were completed by October. They went to RNAS Calshot for evaluation in November 1914. The Special, tested that July, had failed to lift a torpedo and the new Type Cs were little better, failing to take off under load: 157 could not get airborne with a Whitehead torpedo and the other two had similar poor performance. 158 was accepted by the service on 4 February 1915 but it sank following a forced landing a few days later on 8 February. The two survivors, 157 and 159, were withdrawn from service at the end of 1915.

Operators

; *

Royal Naval Air Service The Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) was the air arm of the Royal Navy, under the direction of the Admiralty's Air Department, and existed formally from 1 July 1914 to 1 April 1918, when it was merged with the British Army's Royal Flying Corps t ...

References

;Notes ;Sources * * {{Sopwith Aviation Company aircraft 1910s British military aircraft Admiralty Type C Aircraft first flown in 1914

Design and development

Operators

See also

References