A new Sopwith Aviation Company was formed in late 1912 with flight sheds at Brooklands and offices and additional premises in an old roller-skating rink in nearby Kingston upon Thames. Harry Hawker became the Sopwith Company's test pilot replacing Tom Sopwith himself and at the same time became Sopwith's most devoted colleague.

In April 1914, Sopwith entered a Brooklands-built Sopwith Tabloid biplane - the prototype of all future single seater fighters - in the Schneider Trophy Sea Plane Contest held at Monaco and won at over 86 mph.

The Vickers name was to hold centre stage at Brooklands through an outstanding five decade progression of famous aircraft until it became the Weybridge division of the British Aircraft Corporation and ultimately a major part of British Aerospace.

By August 1914, with the declaration of war on Germany, the 'days of ease and innocence' ended. Brooklands and all its services including the race track were taken over by the war office and a Military Flying School was formed which employed instructors and aeroplanes from many of the existing schools.

In 1915 Vickers started aircraft manufacturing at Brooklands, taking over the 'Itala Motor Works' which had premises on the edge of the Track.

The first aircraft type built by Vickers at Brooklands was the BE2c biplane, 75 being made from 1915-1916 for £975 each. 5 FE8 biplanes were also built in 1916 followed by 1,650 Royal Aircraft Factory SE5A fighters particularly designed to combat the German Zeppelin threat. The former Itala Works were progressively extended by Vickers for military contracts and with the increased demand for labour, women moved in to replace the men who had been called away to serve in the war.

The first true Vickers fighter to go into production at Brooklands was the Gunbus, the world's first aircraft specifically designed to mount a machine gun. This was followed by the twin-engined Vimy designed as a long-range bomber; the war ended before the Vimy had a chance to enter operational service, although the type soon made its name in pioneering long distance flights across the world.

When peace came, aircraft production was cut off almost overnight and factory workers, now mostly men, had to turn their hands to manufacturing other products, for example Bleriot and Sopwith made light cars and motorcycles and Vickers were producing such diverse products as perambulators, fishing-rod cases and brick-making machinery. Harry Hawker also became a familiar sight on the Brooklands Race Track which re-opened in 1920 for a new season of motor racing.

Over the next 20 years up to the outbreak of World War Two, the Vickers factory at Brooklands produced a broad range of military and civil aircraft types including the Vixen, first flown in 1923 and the Vespa, built in 1925 and which later set a new world height record of 43,976 feet in 1932.

Vickers survived in the aviation business through innovation and good management and despite the economic depression and lack of major orders for Britain's small peacetime air force and fledgling airline industry, the company came to specialise in large biplane bombers and transports for the RAF including the Virginia, Victoria and Valentia.

The most notable aircraft to which Barnes Wallis later applied geodetic construction was the Wellington which played such an important part in World War Two.

Parallel to Vickers re-establishing itself in the aircraft business after World War One, Sopwith Aviation was restructured in 1920 at Kingston and Brooklands when Tom Sopwith was forced to liquidate his original company only to re-form as the H.G. Hawker Engineering Company to re-condition war-surplus aircraft with Tom Sopwith himself as engineering director. Sadly, Harry Hawker - Sopwith's great friend, valued colleague and skilled pilot was killed on 12th July 1921 in a flying accident at Hendon, although the Hawker name has carried on in aviation ever since.

Numerous Hawker aircraft types produced and test flown at Brooklands in the interwar years include the classic high speed Hawker Hart bomber, first flown at Brooklands in 1928 with its Rolls-Royce engine later to be named the Kestrel. The Hart had many derivatives, namely the Demon, Osprey, Audax, Hardy, Hartbees, Hind and Hector - and the even faster single-seat Fury and Nimrod fighters. Renamed Hawker Aircraft Limited, the company subsequently became a specialist producer of military fighter aircraft, all through the work of Chief Designer Sydney Camm, who had joined Hawker from the defunct Martinsyde company in 1923. He was another example of Sopwith's remarkable skill as a 'picker of men' and he became one of the world's best military aircraft designers.

In 1934 Tom Sopwith established the Hawker Siddeley Aircraft Company. This significant new group of companies was to produce the majority of British fighter aircraft in the 20th century - most notably the Hurricane fighter which played a decisive role in winning the Battle of Britain in 1940.