Avro 508

The Avro 508 was a prototype British reconnaissance aircraft of the 1910s, built at Avro's Manchester works in December 1913 and assembled at Brooklands in January 1914. It was a wooden, fabric-covered pusher biplane of unusual shape, resembling a back-to-front Avro 504, with equal-length three-bay wings. It was exhibited in Manchester in January 1914 and at the Olympia Aero Show in London, but its first flight came only at the start of official testing in April 1915 at Brooklands. The Royal Flying Corps showed no interest in the sole prototype, which stayed on as a training aircraft and engine tester at Hendon Aerodrome until it was dismantled in April 1916.