Evening clue. Thanks; Ernie P.
Question: What warbird do I describe?
Clues:
1. It was designed as a fighter, but spent much of its life in another role.
2. Single engine.
3. Single seat.
4. Our subject aircraft was a development of a prior prototype aircraft.
5. A prototype aircraft not noted for being handsome or handy.
6. In fact, the first prototype crashed, killing its pilot, on its first flight.
7. Modifications were made and three more prototypes prepared.
8. The design of the fuselage featured a rather high seating position for the pilot, which was done to allow increased visibility.
9. Fairings were used to reduce resistance around the cockpit wherever possible.
10. The design of the fuselage was also specifically intended to allow construction by relatively unskilled workers.
11. The initial production versions largely followed the design of the prototypes.
12. The parent company of the manufacturer was located in a foreign country; and this was the first aircraft designed by the subsidiary.
13. The initial production run of the fighters were armed with a single machine gun located above the top wing.
14. Later versions were equipped with two machine guns located along the forward fuselage.
15. Although our subject aircraft was reasonably fast, had excellent flying characteristics and was quite maneuverable, most combat pilots preferred an available foreign design.
16. That preference largely related to some initial design flaws and teething problems. Most of these were corrected in later versions.
17. Nevertheless, our subject aircraft was slowly pushed into a role as a reconnaissance escort aircraft.
18. Several engines, of increasing horsepower, were used in our subject aircraft during its production run.
19. Some of these increases in power necessitated changes in the wing structure.
20. Despite the increasing power available, almost all of the production aircraft used a two bladed propeller.
21. Although a four bladed propeller was used for some aircraft.
22. A car type radiator was used.
23. This may explain persistent issues with overheating of the engine.
24. It was not uncommon for ground crew to simply remove the engine covers, to increase the airflow around the engine cylinders. Later aircraft had a reduced engine cover to produce the same effect.
25. Different, elongated radiators, fitted along the leading edge of the wing, were tried.
26. One of the early “teething issues” was the fuselage mounted machine guns being located too far forward, making it impossible to clear jams.
27. Another was caused by the use of several different sub-contractors producing the aircraft, in addition to the local firm which designed it.
28. Some of these contractors tended to use shortcuts when building the aircraft.
29. And those shortcuts caused the wings to fail; which did not induce confidence in the aircraft’s pilots.
30. That lack of confidence in the perhaps frail subject aircraft, by the pilots involved, made them prefer a more robust, foreign aircraft which was available.
31. Interestingly enough, a foreign aircraft noted for shedding its wings; particularly in the earlier models.
32. But such are the vagaries of life; and this and other early design and construction flaws doomed our subject aircraft to a secondary role; escorting aircraft doing recon work.
33. Nevertheless, the aircraft remained in production from mid-1917 until the end of the war.
34. It featured a rectangular shaped fuselage.
35. The wing was of basically orthodox structure; with a scalloped trailing edge, Spruce leading edges and spars, and steel tubes with internal wire bracing.
36. Although the curvature of the wing, and the somewhat longer trailing edges, were a bit unusual.
37. The wing’s design gave the plane a degree of stability without sacrificing maneuverability.
38. Only the upper wing was fitted with ailerons.
39. Engine power was increased incrementally from 185 HP to 225 HP.
40. Which required the wings be strengthened.
41. The machine gun interrupter mechanism proved to be problematic at certain engine speeds.
42. Which lead to some issues involving bullets and propellers coming together; which proved troublesome.
43. Top speed was better than 115 MPH, for even the lesser powered versions.
44. Operational ceiling exceeded 20,000 feet.
45. And endurance was around 2-1/2 hours.