Beardmore WB.V

The W.B.V single-seat shipboard fighter was developed in parallel with the W.B.IV. It was intended to carry a 37mm Puteaux cannon between the cylinder blocks of its 200hp Hispano-Suiza eight-cylinder water-cooled engine and featured folding wings, a jettisonable undercarriage and inflatable flotation bags beneath the underside of the leading edge of the lower wing. Three prototypes of the W.B.V were ordered, the first flying on 3 December 1917, but the engine-mounted cannon was removed and a more conventional synchronised 7.7mm Vickers gun and a 7.7mm Lewis gun on a tripod ahead of the cockpit mounted. The second prototype W.B.V was completed and flown in 1918, but further development was abandoned before the end of World War I.

Engine: 200hp Hispano-Suiza
Take-off weight: 1134 kg / 2500 lb
Empty weight: 844 kg / 1861 lb
Wingspan: 10.92 m / 35 ft 10 in
Length: 8.10 m / 26 ft 7 in
Height: 3.61 m / 11 ft 10 in
Wing area: 36.60 sq.m / 393.96 sq ft
Max. speed: 180 km/h / 112 mph