The Bristol Type 101, was a British two-seat fighter

prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototyp ...

of the 1920s.

Development

Designed as a private venture, the 101 was a single-bay biplane, two-seat design of mixed construction. 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 ...

was a

spruce A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' (), a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal (taiga) regions of the Earth. ''Picea'' is the sole genus in the subfami ...

box-girder covered with

plywood Plywood is a material manufactured from thin layers or "plies" of wood veneer that are glued together with adjacent layers having their wood grain rotated up to 90 degrees to one another. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured ...

and the two-spar wings were steel with fabric covering. It was powered by a 450 hp (340 kW)

Bristol Jupiter The Bristol Jupiter was a British nine-cylinder single-row piston radial engine built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company. Originally designed late in World War I and known as the Cosmos Jupiter, a lengthy series of upgrades and developments turn ...

VI, the same engine as the Type 95. Armament consisted of two synchronised .303 in (7.7 mm)

Vickers machine gun The Vickers machine gun or Vickers gun is a Water cooling, water-cooled .303 British (7.7 mm) machine gun produced by Vickers Limited, originally for the British Army. The gun was operated by a three-man crew but typically required more me ...

s and a

ring Ring may refer to: * Ring (jewellery), a round band, usually made of metal, worn as ornamental jewelry * To make a sound with a bell, and the sound made by a bell :(hence) to initiate a telephone connection Arts, entertainment and media Film and ...

-mounted .303 in (7.7 mm) Lewis Gun at the rear.

Operational history

Cleaner and more compact than most aircraft in its class, the 101 displayed relatively high performance when first flown in 1927. However, it was rejected by the Air Ministry due to the use of wood construction, which was seen as out of date. No other buyers could be found and no more aircraft were produced. Continued as a private venture, it first flew at

Filton Filton is a town and civil parish in South Gloucestershire, England, north of Bristol. Along with nearby Patchway and Bradley Stoke, Filton forms part of the Bristol urban area and has become an overflow settlement for the city. Filton Church d ...

on 8 August 1927, piloted by

Cyril Uwins Cyril Frank Uwins OBE, AFC, FRAeS (1896–1972) was a British test pilot who worked for Bristol Aeroplane Company, where he made the first flight of 58 types of aircraft. On 16 September 1932 he broke the world aeroplane height record by climbi ...

, registered ''G-EBOW''. With the VIA powerplant, Uwins achieved second place in the 1928 King's Cup race at an average speed of 159.9 mph. Subsequently, used as a company hack and as a testbed for the 485 hp

Bristol Mercury The Bristol Mercury is a British nine-cylinder, air-cooled, single-row, piston radial engine. Designed by Roy Fedden of the Bristol Aeroplane Company it was used to power both civil and military aircraft of the 1930s and 1940s. Developed from ...

II nine-cylinder radial, it suffered wing centre section failure on 29 November 1929 while being subjected to engine overspeeding tests, the pilot, C. R. L. Shaw, bailing out successfully. This was the last wooden Bristol fighter built.Mason, Francis K., "The British Fighter since 1912", Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 1992, Library of Congress card number 92-63026, , p. 192.

Specifications

References

* {{Bristol aircraft Biplanes Single-engined tractor aircraft 1920s British fighter aircraft Type 101