Armstrong Whitworth Sissit

The Armstrong Whitworth Sissit, also called the F.K.1, was a British prototype single-seat biplane scout of 1914 and the first aircraft designed by Armstrong Whitworth. In 1913 the British War Office asked the company to make aeroplanes and aircraft engines for the Army, and it set up an aircraft department and hired the Dutch designer Frederick Koolhoven, formerly chief engineer of British Deperdussin, as chief designer. His first design was a small single-bay tractor biplane with balanced elevators and no fixed tailplane. It was meant to have an 80 hp Gnome 7 Lambda rotary engine, but only a 50 hp Gnome 7 Omega could be obtained. Koolhoven first flew it in September 1914. It proved underpowered and was later given a fixed tailplane and enlarged ailerons, and because far better single-seat scouts such as the Sopwith Tabloid and Bristol Scout were already available, development stopped after a single example had been built.