Austin-Ball A.F.B.1 - Flight Testing and Career

Flight Testing and Career

Only a single prototype was built. It was assigned the serial number B9909, although this is not visible on surviving photographs of the type. Official flight testing started in July 1917 at RAF Martlesham Heath. Performance was excellent - it had about the same speed as the S.E.5a, but climbed rather better. The only complaints about its handling were of rather poor lateral control (early S.E.5s had similar problems, which were quickly resolved).

The S.E.5a was by this time already in production, and was proving itself an excellent service type - it was however in chronically short supply, and this situation could only have been exacerbated by an attempt to introduce a new type that would have competed with it for production facilities (Austins already had a large SE.5a contract) and engines (since both fighters used the Hispano-Suiza 8, of which there was at this stage a severe shortage). The A.F.B.1 therefore had no real chance of being accepted for a production order.

A photograph of an A.F.B.1 exists with straight SPAD-type wings, complete with the usual SPAD mid-bay reinforcing of the interplane bracing. They may well have been, in fact, a pair of SPAD S.7 wings. Nothing is known about when and why this modification was tried, or if it improved the characteristics or performance of the machine in any way.

At the end of October 1917, the testers at Martlesham Heath were instructed to remove the A.F.B.1's engine and ship it to Ascot by train. The fate of the aircraft after that is not reported.