The Sopwith Antelope was a British three-seat transport aircraft built after the end of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fig ...

. A single-engined

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 ...

based on the

Sopwith Wallaby The Sopwith Wallaby was a British single-engined long-range biplane built during 1919 by Sopwith Aviation Company at Kingston upon Thames. Development The Wallaby was designed to compete in an Australian government £10,000 prize for an Englan ...

long-range aircraft, only a single Antelope was built.

Development and design

In 1919, the

Sopwith Aviation Company 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 ...

developed a three-seat transport aircraft, the Sopwith Antelope, based on its

Wallaby A wallaby () is a small or middle-sized macropod native to Australia and New Guinea, with introduced populations in New Zealand, Hawaii, the United Kingdom and other countries. They belong to the same taxonomic family as kangaroos and some ...

long-range aircraft built to compete for a £10,000 prize for an England-Australia flight, which was in turn based on the Sopwith Atlantic, which had crashed during an attempt to be the first aircraft cross the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the "Old World" of Afr ...

non-stop earlier that year.Jackson 1988, p.311.Robertson 1970, p.231.Robertson 1970, p.142. Like the Wallaby, the Antelope was a single-engined

tractor A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or construction. Most comm ...

, but with a modified fuselage to accommodate the pilot and two passengers. The pilot sat in an open cockpit under the tailing edge of the wing, in front of an enclosed cabin where the two passengers sat on wicker seats facing each other, with a door on the left side of the cabin to give direct access and windows to provide the passengers with a view. The cabin was fitted with a hatch on its roof, which when slid forward allowed the rearmost passenger seat to be raised so the passenger could be seated with his or her head outside the cabin.''Flight'' 22 July 1920, pp. 799–800.''Flight'' 5 August 1920, p.857.''Flight'' 8 July 1920, p.725. It was powered by a single 180 hp (134 kW) Wolseley Viper water-cooled

V8 engine A V8 engine is an eight- cylinder piston engine in which two banks of four cylinders share a common crankshaft and are arranged in a V configuration. The first V8 engine was produced by the French Antoinette company in 1904, developed and u ...

and had two-bay wings.Robertson 1970, p.193.

Operational history

The Antelope was displayed at the 1920 Olympia Aero show, and received its Certificate of Airworthiness on 10 August 1920 before being entered into the

Air Ministry The Air Ministry was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force, that existed from 1918 to 1964. It was under the political authority of the Secretary of State ...

Small Commercial Aircraft Competition later that month, where it received the second prize of £3,000. While Sopwith went into Voluntary liquidation, the Antelope was sold to the Larkin Sopwith Aviation Company of Australia in 1923, being fitted with a Siddeley Puma engine, where it was used to fly

air mail Airmail (or air mail) is a mail transport service branded and sold on the basis of at least one leg of its journey being by air. Airmail items typically arrive more quickly than surface mail, and usually cost more to send. Airmail may be th ...

, remaining in existence until 1935.

Specifications

References

Notes

Bibliography

"The Olympia Aero Show at a Glance"
''Flight'', 8 July 1920, pp. 712–727.

''Flight'', 22 July 1920, pp. 793–806.

''

Flight Flight or flying is the process by which an object moves through a space without contacting any planetary surface, either within an atmosphere (i.e. air flight or aviation) or through the vacuum of outer space (i.e. spaceflight). This can b ...

'', 5 August 1920, pp. 855–861. *Jackson, A.J. ''British Civil Aircraft 1919–1972:Volume III''. London:Putnam, 1988. . *Richardson, Bruce. ''Sopwith – The Man and His Aircraft''. Letchworth, UK:Air Review, 1970. . {{Sopwith Aviation Company aircraft 1920s British airliners