Sopwith Bat Boat

The Sopwith Bat Boats were single-engined pusher biplane flying boats designed and built from 1912 to 1914, and the first successful flying boat and amphibious aircraft built in the United Kingdom. Thomas Sopwith, a keen yachtsman and power-boat racer, began the project in summer 1912 and named it after a flying machine in a Rudyard Kipling story. A first design with a Consuta hull built by S. E. Saunders of Cowes was abandoned and never flown. A second Bat Boat followed, then a third with an amphibious undercarriage, and examples were used by the Royal Navy and by Greece and Germany. The Type 2 carried two crew and a 200 hp Salmson radial engine.