Armstrong Whitworth Siskin

The Armstrong Whitworth Siskin was a single-seat sesquiplane fighter and the first all-metal fighter to serve with the Royal Air Force. It grew out of the Siddeley-Deasy S.R.2 Siskin designed by Major F. M. Green, and it first flew in May 1919 with an ABC Dragonfly radial engine that proved unreliable and underpowered. Fitting the Armstrong Siddeley Jaguar engine and then redrawing the airframe in metal to Air Ministry Specification 14/22 produced the Siskin III, which first flew on 7 May 1923 and entered service with No. 41 Squadron at Northolt in 1924. Eleven RAF squadrons flew it until the last were replaced by Bristol Bulldogs in October 1932, and the Royal Canadian Air Force used it until the outbreak of the Second World War. The Siskin carried much of Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft's business in the 1920s and started the British move to metal construction for military aircraft.