Sopwith Sociable

The Sopwith Sociable, also called the Churchill or the Tweenie, was a two-seat tractor biplane that Sopwith designed and built for the Royal Naval Air Service as a trainer. It took its name from the side-by-side seating of its crew, and it was a two-bay biplane with a 100 hp Gnome Monosoupape engine. The Admiralty serialled it 149 and it first flew from Brooklands on 17 February 1914. Two days later it went to Hendon, and Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, flew in it as a passenger, which gave it its nickname. After a take-off crash and repair it served in Belgium with No. 3 Squadron RNAS from September 1914 and flew an abortive attempt to bomb a German airship shed at Cologne. It was abandoned at Antwerp as German troops advanced.