Gloster Gnatsnapper

The Gloster SS.35 Gnatsnapper was a British naval biplane fighter of the late 1920s, built to Air Ministry specification N.21/26 for a carrier fighter powered by a Bristol Mercury II engine. The first Mercury failed to give its expected 450 horsepower and was unreliable, so the second prototype flew in February 1928 with a Bristol Jupiter VII and proved entirely successful in evaluation at the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment. Two prototypes were built. In 1930 the aircraft was redesigned as the Gnatsnapper II with an Armstrong Siddeley Jaguar for a new carrier fighter competition, which the Hawker Nimrod won, and a third version later served Rolls-Royce as a Goshawk engine testbed. The type never entered production.