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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.
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 .
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.
The Vickers response, the F.B.11, designed by R. L. Howard-Flanders, was a large, single-bay, biplane of tractor layout. The pilot and one gunner sat in separate but closely spaced cockpits under the trailing edge of the upper wing, while a second gunner sat in a nacelle, or "fighting top", attached to, and extending forward of the upper wing.
The Vickers F.B.19 was a British single-seat fighting scout of the First World War, developed from the Barnwell Bullet prototype, and sometimes known as the Vickers Bullet. It served with the Royal Flying Corps and the Imperial Russian Air Service , which subsequently led to the Red Air Force adopting it during the Russian Civil War .
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.
The Vickers E.F.B.1 'Destroyer' was an early British military aircraft prototype. Although not itself a success, the design was considered worth developing, and a series of similar aircraft were produced in prototype form, eventually leading to the Vickers F.B.5 "Gunbus", which saw widespread service during World War I .
Vickers was a British engineering company that existed from 1828 until 1999. ... Beginning in the 1960s, various parts of the company were nationalised, ...