Vickers Vampire

The Vickers F.B.26 Vampire, known on Wikipedia as the Vickers Vampire, was a British single-seat pusher biplane fighter built by Vickers during the First World War. It was a development of the earlier F.B.12 prototypes, a two-bay biplane with a high-mounted nacelle for the pilot and an initial armament of two Lewis guns, with a water-cooled 200 hp Hispano-Suiza engine behind. After changes to the radiator and wing structure it was re-armed with three Lewis guns in an Eeman mounting able to fire upward at 45 degrees at enemy bombers from below. Four were built at Bexleyheath. The prototype was destroyed on 25 August 1917 when test pilot Harold Barnwell failed to recover from a spin. A second aircraft went to No. 39 Squadron and No. 141 Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps, where its handling qualities were judged poor, and a third, modified for ground attack with a Bentley rotary engine, was built in 1918 but abandoned because the Sopwith Salamander was already ordered.