The Mann Egerton Type H, also known as the Mann Egerton H.2, was a British ship-borne fighter aircraft of the 1910s.

Development

The Type H was the first original design by

Mann Egerton Mann, Egerton & Company Ltd. was an automotive and aerospace company which was headquartered in Norwich, United Kingdom. During its history the company was variously active in automotive retailing, aircraft manufacturing, automotive coachbuildi ...

, and was designed by J W Carr to Air Ministry specification N.1a in 1916. Its 2-

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a Gulf (geography), gulf, sea, sound (geography), sound, or bight (geogra ...

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 ...

wings could be folded manually (a feature first introduced in 1913 on the

Short Folder Short Folder is a generic name often applied to several different Short Brothers' aircraft types designed and built prior to and during World War I. Short Brothers developed and patented folding wing mechanisms for ship-borne aircraft from 1913 ...

), due to its intended use as a naval fighter. Other features were the use of flotation chambers and a float attached to the underside of the fuselage for extra

buoyancy Buoyancy (), or upthrust, is an upward force exerted by a fluid that opposes the weight of a partially or fully immersed object. In a column of fluid, pressure increases with depth as a result of the weight of the overlying fluid. Thus the p ...

. An innovation was that the

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 ...

could be jettisoned if the aircraft needed to land on water. However, in autumn 1917, the aircraft failed flotation tests, and a new aircraft prototype, the Type H Mk I with single bay wings was drawn up. The Mark II version had inflatable flotation bags in place of the large float on the Mk I, a more conventional undercarriage and a horn-balanced rudder. This aircraft was tested in December 1917, however it was deemed as unfit for use in 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 ...

and further development was discontinued.

Specifications (Type H Mk II)

References

* * {{cite book , last=Green , first=William , author2=Gordon Swanborough , title=The Complete Book of Fighters, year=1994 , publisher=Salamander Books, location=Godalming, UK, pages=44 1910s British fighter aircraft Type H Aircraft first flown in 1917