Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Vickers F.B.5 (Fighting Biplane 5) (known as the "Gunbus") was a British two-seat pusher military biplane of the First World War.Armed with a single .303 in (7.7 mm) Lewis gun operated by the observer in the front of the nacelle, it was the first aircraft purpose-built for air-to-air combat to see service, making it the world's first operational fighter aircraft.
Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.8. The F.E.8 was an early British "scout" aircraft, designed from the outset as a single-seat fighter.In the absence of a synchronization gear to provide a forward firing machine gun for a tractor scout such as the S.E.2, it was given a pusher layout.
The Lewis gun (or Lewis automatic machine gun or Lewis automatic rifle) is a First World War–era light machine gun. Designed privately in the United States though not adopted there, the design was finalised and mass-produced in the United Kingdom, [ 4 ] and widely used by troops of the British Empire during the war.
The design was a development of the earlier Vickers F.B.12 prototypes; [2] and was a two-bay biplane with a high-mounted nacelle for the pilot and an initial armament of two .303 in (7.7 mm) Lewis Guns. Behind this was a water-cooled 200 hp (150 kW) Hispano-Suiza engine driving the propeller.
At this stage it served as a fighter-reconnaissance aircraft – eventually about ⅔ of the F.E.2s were built as fighters (816) and ⅓ as bombers (395). [6] The F.E.2b and F.E.2d variants remained in day operations well into 1917, while the "b" continued as a standard night bomber until August 1918.
In 1925, they sold it to Major and Mrs. Wilbur J. Watkins, who renamed it Southern California Military Academy (SCMA). It was a private military school that accepted boarding students and day school students, ages 6 to 18 years old. By 1931, it had 103 boarding students with tuition and board costing $725 (equivalent to $13,813 in 2024), 40 day ...
At the start of the First World War, Vickers entered into a partnership with the Hart Engine Company to develop a 150 hp (110 kW) nine-cylinder radial engine designed by Hart. This engine was planned to power a number of new designs by Vickers, the first of which was a small single-engine pusher biplane fighter , the F.B.12 .
Vickers was a British engineering company that existed from 1828 until 1999. ... In 1911, the company expanded into aircraft manufacture and opened a flying school.