The Beardmore W.B.II was a British

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 prototype of the 1910s.

Development

A two-seat fighter of wooden construction, the W.B.II was built as a private venture by

William Beardmore and Company William Beardmore and Company was a British engineering and shipbuilding conglomerate based in Glasgow and the surrounding Clydeside area. It was active from 1886 to the mid-1930s and at its peak employed about 40,000 people. It was founded and ...

. A development of the

Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2c The Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2 was a British single-engine tractor two-seat biplane designed and developed at the Royal Aircraft Factory. Most of the roughly 3,500 built were constructed under contract by private companies, including establish ...

it was designed by G. Tilghman Richards in 1916. Powered by a

Hispano-Suiza 8Bd The Hispano-Suiza 8 was a water-cooled V8 SOHC aero engine introduced by Hispano-Suiza in 1914, and was the most commonly used liquid-cooled engine in the aircraft of the Entente Powers during the First World War. The original Hispano-Suiza ...

engine, it carried two guns and design finished early in 1917 with the production of the first prototype.

Operational history

The W.B.II was first flown on 30 August 1917, and performance proved good. However, the

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 ...

deemed that the 8Bd engine, at that time in short supply, was needed more urgently for use in the S.E.5a fighter at that time serving with the

Royal Flying Corps "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colors = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = , decorations ...

World War I 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 ...

. As such, no further production of the W.B.II took place, however in 1920 two civil examples were produced, named the W.B.IIB.

Variants

;W.B.II: 2-seat fighter built as a private venture;two built. ;W.B.IIa Adriatic: A proposed version to have been powered by the

Galloway Adriatic The Galloway Adriatic was a WW1 era inline-six aircraft engine. In British military service the engine was known as the 230 hp BHP, a designation it shared with a version of the same engine built by Siddeley-Deasy. Although the Galloway and ...

engine. ;W.B.IIb: A fast mail-plane civilian variant; two built.

Specifications (W.B.II)

References

Bibliography

* {{Beardmore aircraft 1910s British fighter aircraft W.B.2 Aircraft first flown in 1917