The Armstrong Whitworth A.W.16 (or A.W.XVI) was a British single-engine

biplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...

fighter aircraft Fighter aircraft are fixed-wing military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air superiority of the battlespace. Domination of the airspace above a battlefield ...

designed and built by

Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft Sir W. G. Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft Company, or Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft, was a British aircraft manufacturer. History Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft was established as the Aerial Department of the Sir W. G. Armstrong Whitworth & Company e ...

. A number were sold to the

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

''Kwangsi'' Air Force.

Development

The A.W.16 was developed by

Armstrong Whitworth Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Co Ltd was a major British manufacturing company of the early years of the 20th century. With headquarters in Elswick, Newcastle upon Tyne, Armstrong Whitworth built armaments, ships, locomotives, automobiles and a ...

to meet the requirements of Specification F9/26. With the first prototype flying in 1930, it was too late for consideration against this specification, and was submitted against specification Specification N21/26 for a naval fighter for the

Fleet Air Arm The Fleet Air Arm (FAA) is one of the five fighting arms of the Royal Navy and is responsible for the delivery of naval air power both from land and at sea. The Fleet Air Arm operates the F-35 Lightning II for maritime strike, the AW159 Wil ...

. It was a single bay biplane with wings of unequal span braced with ''N''-type interwing struts, and bore a close family resemblance to the A.W.XIV

Starling Starlings are small to medium-sized passerine birds in the family Sturnidae. The Sturnidae are named for the genus ''Sturnus'', which in turn comes from the Latin word for starling, ''sturnus''. Many Asian species, particularly the larger ones, ...

Mk I, though with a less

Siskin The name siskin when referring to a bird is derived from an adaptation of the German dialect words ''sisschen'', ''zeischen'', which are diminutive forms of Middle High German (''zîsec'') and Middle Low German (''ziseke'', ''sisek'') words, which ...

-like, humped fuselage. The undercarriage was fixed, undivided and spatted. The

Armstrong Siddeley Panther The Armstrong Siddeley Panther was a 27-litre 14-cylinder twin-row air-cooled radial aero engine developed by Armstrong Siddeley. It was originally named the Jaguar Major.Lumsden 2003, p.72. Applications * Armstrong Whitworth Atlas Mk II * A ...

radial engine, earlier known as the Jaguar Major was enclosed by a

Townend ring A Townend ring is a narrow- chord cowling ring fitted around the cylinders of an aircraft radial engine to reduce drag and improve cooling. Development The Townend ring was the invention of Dr. Hubert Townend of the British National Physica ...

. Problems with the Panther engine delayed the aircraft, and the competing

Hawker Nimrod The Hawker Nimrod is a British carrier-based single-engine, single-seat biplane fighter aircraft built in the early 1930s by Hawker Aircraft. Design and development In 1926 the Air Ministry specification N.21/26 was intended to produce a suc ...

was purchased before the AW.16 could be delivered for evaluation. When it was evaluated, it showed inferior performance to the Nimrod, and had poor handling on an exposed carrier deck. Armstrong Whitworth continued to try to sell the aircraft, and produced a second prototype (''G-ACCD'') fitted with a more reliable Panther IIA engine for submission against Specification F7/30 for an order from the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

. However, by this time the A.W.16 was out of date, and was quickly discarded from consideration, which was eventually won by the

Gloster Gladiator The Gloster Gladiator is a British biplane fighter. It was used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) (as the Sea Gladiator variant) and was exported to a number of other air forces during the late 1930s. Developed private ...

. A number of production aircraft were made, however, with 17 ordered by the Kwangsi Air Force in China The first prototype A.W.16 was in 1933 experimentally fitted with the 15-cylinder 3-row

radial Radial is a geometric term of location which may refer to: Mathematics and Direction * Vector (geometric), a line * Radius, adjective form of * Radial distance, a directional coordinate in a polar coordinate system * Radial set * A bearing f ...

Armstrong Siddeley Hyena The Armstrong Siddeley Hyena was a British aero engine developed by Armstrong Siddeley. Designed in the 1930s, it was an unusual experimental radial engine with inline cylinder banks. It was flown using an Armstrong Whitworth A.W.16 fighter a ...

, but this engine suffered from cooling problems and was abandoned. The second prototype was rebuilt into the

Armstrong Whitworth Scimitar The Armstrong Whitworth A.W.35 Scimitar was a British single-engine biplane fighter aircraft designed and built by Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft. Four Scimitars were produced for the Norwegian Army Air Service and were delivered in 1936. Desi ...

fighter.

Operational history

The 16 A.W.16 fighters for the Kwangsi air force were produced late in 1931, and were delivered via

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

. While initially serving in the air force of the local Warlords, the A.W.16s were (along with the rest of the Kwangsi Air Force) incorporated in the main Chinese Nationalist Air Force in 1937.

Operators

; *Kwangsi Air Force ; *

Chinese Nationalist Air Force Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

Specifications (A.W.16)

References

* * *

External links

Armstrong Whitworth A.W.XVI
– British Aircraft Directory {{Authority control 1930s British fighter aircraft A.W.16 Biplanes Single-engined tractor aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1930