Fairey Hamble Baby

The Fairey Hamble Baby was a single-seat naval patrol floatplane built for the Royal Naval Air Service during the First World War. It grew out of Fairey's work on the Sopwith Baby: after one of those aircraft was sent to the Hamble works for repair in October 1916, the company rebuilt it with a number of changes, the most important being the Fairey Patent Camber Gear, a hinged trailing edge flap that could still act as ailerons. Production aircraft differed from the Sopwith and Blackburn built Babies in wing and tailplane shape, fin and floats. Parnall also built Hamble Babies, and its last 74 were landplanes known as the Hamble Baby Convert. Operators included the Royal Naval Air Service, the Royal Air Force and the Hellenic Navy.