Fairey F.2

The Fairey F.2 was a large three-seat fighter prototype ordered by the Admiralty in 1916 and notable as the first aircraft designed entirely by the Fairey Aviation Company. It was a three-bay biplane powered by two Rolls-Royce Falcon engines, with a four-wheel bedstead undercarriage and wings that folded aft from a point outboard of the engines. Armament was a Lewis gun on a Scarff ring in the nose and another behind the wings. Built at Harlington and taken by road to Northolt, it first flew on 17 May 1917, by which time Admiralty interest had faded. It proved slow and hard to handle, and no production followed.