Avro 523 Pike

The Avro 523 Pike, the first Avro aircraft to receive a name, was a British multi-role combat aircraft of the First World War that did not progress past the prototype stage. It was meant to give the Royal Naval Air Service an anti-Zeppelin fighter that could also do long-range reconnaissance and bombing. It was a large three-bay biplane of conventional layout driven by two pusher propellers, with three open cockpits, the pilot in the centre and gunners fore and aft. The Admiralty evaluated it in November 1916, found it obsolete and placed no order. Avro built a second prototype, the 523A, with Green E.6 engines in place of the Sunbeams, and both flew as testbeds with Avro for the rest of the war.