Fairey Firefly I

The Fairey Firefly I was a single-seat, single-engine fighter biplane of mixed construction, a private venture designed by Marcel Lobelle and powered by an American Curtiss D-12 engine. Norman Macmillan first flew it on 9 November 1925. The Air Ministry did not take the project up, partly because of the American engine and partly because of its wooden construction, so the Firefly I never entered production. It shares only its name with the later all-metal Firefly IIM of 1929, a new design that served with the Belgian Air Force, and with the Second World War carrier fighter that Fairey also called the Firefly.