The Armstrong Whitworth Wolf was a British two-seat

reconnaissance aircraft A reconnaissance aircraft (colloquially, a spy plane) is a military aircraft designed or adapted to perform aerial reconnaissance with roles including collection of imagery intelligence (including using photography), signals intelligence, as ...

ordered by 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 ...

in 1923.

Design and development

The Wolf was a two-bay

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 ...

of unorthodox design, with the

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...

mounted between the two sets of wings. No production order was placed, and the three machines built served their days at the

Royal Aircraft Establishment The Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) was a British research establishment, known by several different names during its history, that eventually came under the aegis of the Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom), UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), bef ...

at Farnborough as experimental testbeds. Alongside the RAF's order in 1923,

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 ...

also built two for the RAF Reserve Flying School at Whitley, and a final, sixth aircraft in 1929. As

trainers Sneakers (also called trainers, athletic shoes, tennis shoes, gym shoes, kicks, sport shoes, flats, running shoes, or runners) are shoes primarily designed for sports or other forms of physical exercise, but which are now also widely used f ...

, they proved popular with pilots, although less so with ground crews for whom the rigging and

undercarriage Undercarriage is the part of a moving vehicle that is underneath the main body of the vehicle. The term originally applied to this part of a horse-drawn carriage, and usage has since broadened to include: *The landing gear of an aircraft. *The ch ...

were awkward to maintain. All Wolves were retired from service in 1931 and all but the most recently built were scrapped. The final aircraft was taken to

Hamble Hamble may refer to: * The River Hamble in Hampshire, England * Hamble aerodrome on the banks of the River Hamble. ** Hamble-Warsash Ferry, a ferry service on the River Hamble * Hamble-le-Rice, a village on the river Hamble, close to the city of Sou ...

for use as an instructional airframe.

Operators

; *

Specifications (Wolf)

Notes

References

* * * {{Armstrong Whitworth aircraft 1920s British military reconnaissance aircraft

Wolf The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly u ...

Biplanes Single-engined tractor aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1923

Design and development

Operators

Specifications (Wolf)

See also

Notes

References