The Beardmore W.B.V was a prototype British single-engine shipborne biplane fighter of World War I developed by Beardmore.[1] It was not successful, only two being completed.
At the same time as developing the Beardmore W.B.IV, G. Tilghman Richards, the chief designer of Beardmore, designed a second aircraft to meet an Admiralty requirement for a ship-borne fighter aircraft to be armed with a 37 mm Le-Puteaux quick firing gun in order to destroy airships.[2] The resulting aircraft, the W.B.V, was a single seater two-bay tractorbiplane powered by a 200 hp (149 kW) Hispano-Suiza engine. The wings folded for storage on board ship. The manually loaded Le-Puteaux gun was mounted between the cylinder banks of the V-8 engine, firing through a hollow propeller shaft. Unlike the W.B.V, the W.B.IV was not fitted with a buoyancy chamber, being instead fitted with inflatable flotation bags.[3]
The first prototype flew on 3 December 1917.[2] During testing, the Le Puteaux gun was considered dangerous by RNAS pilots, and the aircraft was re-armed with a more conventional synchronised Vickers machine gun together with a Lewis gun mounted on a tripod mounting.[4] Development was abandoned shortly after the completion of a second prototype.
Bruce, J.M. (1965). War Planes of the First World War: Volume 1 Fighters. London: Macdonald.
Green, William & Swanborough, Gordon (2001) [1994]. The Complete Book of Fighters: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Every Fighter Built and Flown (Revised and Updated ed.). London: Salamander Books. ISBN1-84065-269-1.
Mason, Francis K (1992). The British Fighter since 1912. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN1-55750-082-7.
Owers, Colin (2023). Beardmore Aircraft of WWI: A Centennial Perspective on Great War Airplanes. Great War Aviation Centennial Series. Vol. 69. n.p.: Aeronaut Books. ISBN978-1-953201-69-0.
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