Gloster Nightjar

The Gloster Nightjar was a British single-seat shipboard fighter of the early 1920s, built to replace the Sopwith Camels flown from Royal Navy aircraft carriers. It was a simple conversion of surplus Nieuport Nighthawk airframes, which Gloster had taken over when Nieuport and General closed in 1920, fitted with a Bentley BR2 rotary engine in place of the unreliable ABC Dragonfly, a wide-track undercarriage and jaws on the axle to catch the arrester cables then used at sea. Twenty-two Nighthawks were converted in 1922. The type served with 203 Squadron, deployed aboard HMS Argus during the Chanak Crisis, and was replaced by the Fairey Flycatcher in 1924.