The Vickers E.F.B.7 was a prototype
British fighter aircraft 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 ...
. A twin-engined
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 ...
, the E.F.B.7 was unsuccessful, only one being built.
Development and design
In August 1914, following the outbreak 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 ...
, the British pioneer aircraft designer Howard Flanders was hired by
Vickers Limited
Vickers Limited was a British engineering conglomerate. The business began in Sheffield in 1828 as a steel foundry and became known for its church bells, going on to make shafts and propellers for ships, armour plate and then artillery. Entir ...
as an aircraft designer, with his first job to design a fighting aircraft to carry a Vickers 1 pounder (37 mm) cannon.
[Bruce 1969, p. 81.] (This was not the well-known
pom-pom
A pom-pom – also spelled pom-pon, pompom or pompon – is a decorative ball or tuft of fibrous material.
The term may refer to large tufts used by Cheerleading, cheerleaders, or a small, tighter ball attached to the top of a hat, al ...
, but a smaller and lighter
long recoil
Recoil operation is an operating mechanism used to implement locked breech, autoloading firearms. Recoil operated firearms use the energy of recoil to cycle the action, as opposed to gas operation or blowback operation using the pressure of the p ...
cannon firing less powerful ammunition). Flanders produced a twin-engined development of his earlier
Flanders B.2
__NOTOC__
The Flanders B.2 was a 1910s British experimental biplane designed and built by Howard Flanders and later used by the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS)
Development
Flanders designed and built a two-seat biplane designated the Flanders ...
single-engined
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 ...
, the E.F.B.7 (Experimental Fighting Biplane No.7).
[
The E.F.B.7 was a two-bay biplane with a steel-tube structure 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 fabric covering. It had un-staggered wings, with the upper wings of much greater (i.e. 22 ft (6.7 m)) span than the lower ones. It was powered by two tractor
A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or construction. Most common ...
Gnome Monosoupape rotary engines mounted between the wings. The gunner sat in a large cockpit in the nose of the aircraft, with a rotating mount for the cannon and an armoured floor claimed to be bulletproof, while the pilot sat in a cockpit behind the wings, so that the pilot and gunner could not communicate.
The E.F.B.7 first flew in August 1915, being passed to the Central Flying School for testing. Sometime early in its career, it was fitted with large cowlings to catch oil from the engines. An order for a further twelve aircraft was placed on 20 August 1915, which were to have a modified fuselage, allowing the pilot to sit closer to the gunner and owing to a shortage of Monosoupapes, powered by two 80 hp (60 kW) Renault 80 hp air-cooled V8 engine
A V8 engine is an eight-cylinder piston engine in which two banks of four cylinders share a common crankshaft and are arranged in a V configuration.
The first V8 engine was produced by the French Antoinette company in 1904, developed and us ...
s. The first prototype was modified to this form, becoming the E.F.B.7A. Performance with these less powerful engines was much poorer and the production orders were cancelled on 16 February 1916 before any more were completed.[Bruce 1969, pp. 84–85.]
Specifications (E.F.B.7)
See also
Notes
References
* Andrews, C. F., and Morgan, E.B. ''Vickers Aircraft since 1908''. London: Putnam, Second edition, 1988. .
* Bruce, J. M. ''War Planes of the First World War: Volume Three, Fighters''. London: Macdonald, 1969. .
* Mason, Francis K. ''The British Fighter since 1912''. Annapolis, Maryland, USA: Naval Institute Press, 1992. .
* Williams, Anthony G., and Gustin, Emmanuel. ''Flying Guns: World War I and its Aftermath 1914–32''. Ramsbury, UK: Airlife, 2003. .
{{Vickers aircraft
1910s British fighter aircraft
E.F.B.7
Military aircraft of World War I
Rotary-engined aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1915