Avro 539

The Avro 539 was a British single-seat racing biplane built by Avro for the 1919 Schneider Trophy. Designed and built in August 1919 as a small tractor floatplane with a stubby fuselage and twin wooden floats, it was powered by a 240 hp Siddeley Puma and first flew at Avro's Hamble works on 29 August 1919. It was nominated only as reserve in the elimination trials, and the race on 10 September 1919 was ruined by fog and declared void. It was then converted to a landplane for the 1920 Aerial Derby, where a fuel leak forced a retirement, and rebuilt as the 539B with a 450 hp Napier Lion for 1921, when it crashed into a railway cutting on landing and was wrecked.