Austin-Ball A.F.B.1

The Austin-Ball A.F.B.1, short for Austin Fighting Biplane, was a single-seat British fighter of the First World War, built as a prototype by the Austin Motor Company, a car maker that was not part of the pre-war aircraft industry. Its design drew on ideas from the leading British ace Albert Ball, whose father was, or had been, a director of Austin, while most of the drawing office work was done at Austin under C. H. Brooks. It was an unstaggered, equal-span biplane with an unusually deep fuselage, a 200 horsepower Hispano-Suiza 8 V-8 engine and two Lewis guns, one of them firing through a hollow propeller shaft. The prototype, serial B9909, first flew on 27 July 1917 and tested well at Martlesham Heath, matching the S.E.5a for speed and climbing better, but it was never ordered because Austin's factory capacity and the scarce Hispano-Suiza engines were needed for the S.E.5a. Only the one aircraft was built.