Sopwith Dolphin

The Sopwith Dolphin, designated 5F.1, was a single-seat biplane fighter that served with the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Air Force on the Western Front from early 1918. Herbert Smith designed it around the geared 200 hp Hispano-Suiza 8B V-8 engine. Its two-bay wings had negative stagger and the pilot sat with his head through an open steel cabane frame, which gave a fine view but troubled novices because the nose could not be seen. The Dolphin proved a formidable fighter, and 2,072 Mk I aircraft were built by Sopwith, Darracq and Hooper. It was not kept in the postwar inventory and was retired soon after the war, and no complete original is known to survive.