Bristol Type 123

The Bristol Type 123 was a single seat, single engine biplane fighter built to a British Air Ministry specification for a four gun fighter in the early 1930s, and only one was built. Specification F.7/30 asked for better high altitude performance, climb rate, manoeuvrability and all round vision, preferably with the evaporatively cooled Rolls-Royce Goshawk engine. Bristol's design submissions won no prototype orders, so it built the Type 123 as a private venture. Bristol's last biplane, it was a compact single bay machine with constant chord wings, pronounced stagger, a swept upper wing, a cantilever lower wing and leading edge slots. Cooling problems delayed its first flight, made by Cyril Uwins on 12 June 1934.