The Avro 531 Spider was a British

fighter aircraft Fighter aircraft are fixed-wing military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air superiority of the battlespace. Domination of the airspace above a battlefield ...

built by

Avro AVRO, short for Algemene Vereniging Radio Omroep ("General Association of Radio Broadcasting"), was a Dutch public broadcasting association operating within the framework of the Nederlandse Publieke Omroep system. It was the first public broad ...

during 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 ...

. It did not proceed past the prototype stage.

Design and development

The Spider was a

sesquiplane 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 a ...

with a largely conventional configuration, but it used Warren truss-type interplane struts, hence the appellation "Spider". In tests, the aircraft demonstrated exceptional performance, handling, and pilot visibility. By the time it flew, the War Office had already selected the Sopwith Snipe for mass production. A second, refined version, the Avro 531A, apparently never was completed, but some of its components seem to have been used to build a derivative design, the Avro 538. This had standard interplane struts and was intended as a racing aircraft. It was never used for this purpose, however, because it was discovered that it had a faulty wing spar, so the Avro firm used it as a hack instead from May 1919 to September 1920.Donald, p. 77.

Specifications (531)

References

;Notes ;Bibliography * Donald, David, ed. ''The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft''. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, . * Jackson, A.J. ''Avro Aircraft since 1908''. London: Putnam Aeronautical Books, 1990. . * Taylor, Michael J. H. ''Jane's Encyclopedia of Aviation''. London: Studio Editions, 1989, p. 93. * ''World Aircraft Information Files''. London: Bright Star Publishing, File 889, Sheet 94. {{Avro aircraft 1910s British fighter aircraft

Spider Spiders ( order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species ...

Single-engined tractor aircraft Sesquiplanes Aircraft first flown in 1918 Rotary-engined aircraft Biplanes