Siddeley-Deasy Sinaia

The Siddeley-Deasy Sinaia, also known as the Armstrong Whitworth Sinaia, was a large twin-engined biplane day bomber designed to meet an Air Ministry requirement. It was the third and last design of the team led by John Lloyd and F. M. Green at Siddeley-Deasy before the firm was rebadged by merger as the Sir W. G. Armstrong Aircraft Company, a change that had already taken effect when it first flew on 25 June 1921. Its most unusual feature was the defensive armament: the engines sat in nacelles on top of the lower wings, and each nacelle was extended rearwards and upwards to carry a gunner's cockpit with a gun ring, so that two gunners could cover both sides, with a third position in the slanted nose. It was powered by two 500 hp Siddeley Tiger water-cooled V-12 engines, a little-tested design that proved unreliable and interrupted the flight trials. Two examples were ordered but only one was completed, and by October 1921 structural problems had appeared and it was taken out of use.