Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.8
| F.E.8 | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Darracq-built F.E.8 | |
| Role | Pusher biplane fighter |
| Manufacturer | Royal Aircraft Factory, Darracq Motor Engineering, Vickers |
| First flight | September 1915 |
| Introduction | 2 August 1916 |
| Primary user | Royal Flying Corps |
| Number built | 295 |
The Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.8 was a British single-seat fighter of the First World War designed at the Royal Aircraft Factory. Although a clean and well designed little aeroplane for a pusher, it could not escape the drag penalty imposed by its tail structure and was no match for the Albatros fighters of late 1916.
With the D.H.2, the F.E.8 was one of the first so-called "scout" aircraft designed from the outset as a single-seat fighter. In the absence of a synchronization gear to provide a forward firing machine gun for a tractor scout such as the S.E. 2, it was given a pusher layout.
On the whole the new design, produced by a team led by John Kenworthy followed the conventional "Farman" layout, as did the competing Airco DH.2 designed by Geoffrey de Havilland, who had also previously worked at the Royal Aircraft Factory - but it had some novel features.
The nacelle was, most unusually for the time, an all-metal structure – being framed in steel tube and covered with duralumin. The prototypes were fitted with large streamlined spinners on the propellers, although these were removed, and the production F.E.8s were built without them. The wings had a narrow chord, giving them a high aspect ratio. They featured dihedral outboard of the wide centre section, and the ailerons were of unusually long span - occupying the entire wing trailing edge outboard of the tail booms. The booms themselves were attached to the main spar of the tailplane, rather than the rudder post, giving them taper in side elevation rather than in plan, as more usual in a "Farman" style pusher. This allowed the fitting of a variable incidence tailplane, although this was not adjustable in flight, but only on the ground. A single 100 hp (75 kW) Gnome 9 "Type B2" Monosoupape rotary engine driving a four-bladed propeller powered the aircraft, with the capability of taking the lower-powered Le Rhône 9C 80 hp, nine-cylinder rotary.
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