54 | FLIGHTPATH
down two enemy aircraft and drive off a
third, recognised by Hawker’s award of a
Victoria Cross.
One Bristol Scout was shipped to Australia
in 1916 for the Central Flying School at Point
Cook, coming complete with “bomb sights,
bombs, Lewis guns, aerial cameras and acces-
sories at a cost of £1,000”. It was regarded as a
bit too much for trainees, and was used as an
instructor’s hack aircraft, surviving, remark-
ably until 1924, one of the last of the 374 built.
The M1
While later Scouts did get fixed forward fir-
ing guns and synchronisation gear, their
performance by then was no longer viable in
front-line use. Barnwell realised that a mon-
oplane could have a speed and performance
advantage and developed what became the
Bristol M.1, as outlined on page 50. But it did
not make a difference on the Western Front,
the Air Ministry ostensibly distrusting it be-
cause of ‘high landing speeds’ (unsuitable
for the small fields of France) but also gener-
ally understood to be a lingering distrust of
the monoplane after the fatal pre-war crash
of a Bristol Coanda monoplane in military
service, so only 130 were built.
Having produced one of the premier sin-
gle-seat biplane scouts at the war’s start,
followed by a remarkable single seater
monoplane, Barnwell turned his talents to
designing what became a two seat biplane
fighter, though it was ostensibly to replace
the general duties B.E.2 type. (Today we
look on what they then called ‘scouts’ as
the modern fighter, which is what they
swiftly developed into, but it is worth re-
membering that then the term ‘fighter’ ac-
tually equated more to the later heavy
fighter concept.)A Heavyweight Fighter
The Bristol F.2B Fighter was unarguably
one of the most important types of W.W.I. At
first glance it looked like a conventional
two-seater type, with the crew back to back.
But while other two seaters were intended
for bombing and the under-recognised re-
connaissance and artillery observation,
F.2Bs were critical in establishing air supe-
riority and being used for what was later
known as interdiction.
After initial disasters caused by being in-
structed to fly in formation, pilots realised
they needed to fly (and fight) the machine asa single seater, advantageously with a gunner
to protect the tail. Careful design by Frank
Barnwell gave a sloped down rear fuselage
terminating in an unusual horizontal stern-
post, and the fuselage hung between the
mainplanes, putting the pilot’s eyeline on the
upper wing’s trailing edge, and ensuring ex-
cellent vision and arc of fire for the crew.
With over 5,000 built, at the war’s end
Bristol’s excellent F2B fighter was recog-
nised by the newly-formed RAF as one of
the key types worth hanging on to and, later
nick-named the ‘Brisfit’, this type soldiered
on in RAF use across the Empire, able to
continue to undertake a remarkable variety
of roles as it had in wartime.
While Bristol Fighters were not a major mil-
itary type in Australia the Bristol Tourer civil
‘air taxi’ version was an important type in the
foundation of Western Australian Airways.
Having entered the war with a successful
production type, Bristol were to finish in
1918 in good shape and went on for decades
more, right up to participation in the Con-
corde project, and with aircraft part produc-
tion still continuing (under other legacy
names) in one of the company’s original
sites of Filton, Bristol.LE F T: The Bristol Baby is seen on
23 February, 1914, at the time of
its first flight at Larkhill, with test
pilot Harry Busteed in the cockpit
and designer Frank Barnwell
holding up the tail. [via Author]The actual Bristol Scout C flown by Lanoe Hawker in his Victoria
Cross-earning military engagement on July 25, 1915. [via Author]The Shuttleworth Collection’s
Bristol Boxkite seen at Old
Warden in 2003. [James Kightly]