The Armstrong Whitworth Ara was an unsuccessful
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
single-seat
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 ...
of the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
built 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 ...
.
Design and development
In early 1918, the British
Air Ministry
The Air Ministry was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force, that existed from 1918 to 1964. It was under the political authority of the Secretary of State ...
wrote RAF Specification Type 1 for a single-seat fighter to replace the
Sopwith Snipe
The Sopwith 7F.1 Snipe was a British single-seat biplane fighter of the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was designed and built by the Sopwith Aviation Company during the First World War, and came into squadron service a few weeks before the end of th ...
. The specified engine was the
ABC Dragonfly
The ABC Dragonfly was a British radial engine developed towards the end of the First World War. It was expected to deliver excellent performance for the time and was ordered in very large numbers. It proved, however, to be extremely unreliable ...
, a new
radial engine
The radial engine is a reciprocating type internal combustion engine configuration in which the cylinders "radiate" outward from a central crankcase like the spokes of a wheel. It resembles a stylized star when viewed from the front, and is ca ...
which had been ordered into production based on promised performance before any testing had been carried out. To meet this specification, Armstrong Whitworth's chief designer, Fred Murphy, produced the Armstrong Whitworth Ara, three prototypes being ordered.
[Bruce 1965, p.20.]
The Ara was a two-bay biplane. It had a square fuselage, the engine was covered in a pointed cowling, but with the cylinder heads exposed. The upper wing was low to give the pilot a better upwards view.
[Taylor 1990, p.48.]
As with the other fighters built to meet the Type 1 specification, the Dragonfly engine proved to be the Ara's undoing, demonstrating hopeless reliability. Two of the three prototypes were completed, the first flying in mid-1919. The Ara was abandoned towards the end of the year when Armstrong Whitworth closed down its aircraft department.
[Mason 1992, p.148.][Note: Armstrong Whitworth purchased the engineering company ]Siddeley-Deasy
The Siddeley-Deasy Motor Car Company Limited was a British automobile, aero engine and aircraft company based in Coventry in the early 20th century. It was central to the formation, by merger and buy-out, of the later Armstrong Siddeley Motor ...
in 1920, splitting off its aircraft department to form the Sir W. G. Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft Company.
Specifications
See also
Notes
References
*
*
*
{{Armstrong Whitworth aircraft
1910s British fighter aircraft
Ara
ARA may refer to:
Media and the arts
* American-Romanian Academy of Arts and Sciences
* '' Artistička Radna Akcija'', compilation album released in former Yugoslavia
* Associate of the Royal Academy, denoting membership in the British Royal Aca ...
Biplanes
Single-engined tractor aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1919