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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.
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.
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.
A Lewis gun is mounted atop the lower right wing. The official armament of the Dolphin was two fixed, synchronized Vickers machine guns and two Lewis guns mounted on the forward cabane crossbar, firing at an upward angle, over the propeller disc. The mounting provided three positions in elevation and some limited sideways movement.
Lewis joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in early 1939 as a pilot officer and served in the Mediterranean and Middle East theatre of World War II, rising to the rank of squadron leader. [18] [19] Bernard Shaw wrote of Lewis: "This prince of pilots has had a charmed life in every sense of the word. He is a thinker, a master of words ...
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.
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 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 .