Development
The Royal Navy was an early leader in carrier aviation and, in the autumn of 1914, purchased the liner Campania for conversion into a seaplane carrier. Operating seaplanes required the carrier to stop to hoist the aircraft out- and in-board by crane, leaving the ship exceedingly vulnerable to U-Boat attacks; this technique fell into disfavour with the Admiralty, who began to seek alternatives. By the middle of 1916, Campania had been fitted with a 200 ft (61 m) flight deck forward and experiments were being carried out in launching aircraft from this. Against this background, the Admiralty issued a specification for a purpose-built, two-seat patrol and reconnaissance aircraft.
The aircraft that Fairey Aviation designed in response first flew on 16 February 1917. It was a single-engined tractor biplane of fabric-covered wooden construction. The two-bay wings folded rearwards for storage. The crew of two sat in separate cockpits, with the observer's cockpit provided with a single Lewis gun on a Scarff ring This was the first of two prototypes, designated F.16 and powered by a 250 hp (190 kW) Rolls-Royce Eagle IV. The second, powered by an Eagle V of 275 hp (205 kW), was designated F.17. Both prototypes would later see active service operating from Scapa Flow.
Read more about this topic: Fairey Campania
Famous quotes containing the word development:
“Men are only as good as their technical development allows them to be.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“The American has dwindled into an Odd Fellow—one who may be known by the development of his organ of gregariousness.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“They [women] can use their abilities to support each other, even as they develop more effective and appropriate ways of dealing with power.... Women do not need to diminish other women ... [they] need the power to advance their own development, but they do not “need” the power to limit the development of others.”
—Jean Baker Miller (20th century)