Sopwith Snipe E8263

This profile above is taken from a series of photographs from the Australian War Memorial Collection of the Sopwith Snipe E8263. The aircraft appears in a photograph of a line up of B Flight aircraft at Bickendorff as well is in a series of photos where E8263 is buzzing the aerodrome and photographer. Note the slightly longer squadron marking fore of the roundel and the thin flight marking 4. The Snipe is one of several final production form Snipes that were delivered to the squadron.

E8263 was a Sopwith factory built later variant of the Snipe with the larger rudder and balanced aileron's. A complaint by pilot's flying the early Snipes was that manoeuvrability would be improved by a larger rudder and greater lateral control. The Sopwith factory enlarged the fixed fin to 2.75 square feet and the balanced rudder to 9 square feet, but it was still was too slow in lateral and rudder movement for the scout pilots. In October of 1918 the Snipe was fitted with an even larger fin and rudder as well as larger horn balanced and inversely-tapered ailerons.