Westland N.1B

The Westland N.1B was a prototype British single engined floatplane fighter of the First World War, and the first aircraft to be designed by Westland Aircraft. The Admiralty drew up Requirement N.1B in 1916 for a single seat floatplane or flying boat fighter for the Royal Navy seaplane carriers, asking for 110 mph and a 20,000 foot ceiling, and Westland received an order for two. It was a wooden tractor biplane with a deep fuselage and two bay folding wings with trailing edge flaps, powered by a Bentley rotary engine and armed with a synchronised Vickers gun and a Lewis gun above the upper wing. Harry Hawker first flew the first aircraft at Yeovil in August 1917. Tests at Port Victoria showed good performance, but the Royal Naval Air Service was by then flying landplane fighters from ships and the programme was cancelled.