Austin - Ball A . F . B . 1 The Austin - Ball A . F . B . 1 ( Austin Fighting Biplane ) was a British fighter plane of World War I built by the Austin Motor Company with design input from Britain ' s leading fighter ace at the time , Albert Ball . Although trials with the prototype were on the whole excellent , and it could very probably have been developed into a useful operational type , the A . F . B . 1 did not go into production , as both Austin ' s production capacity and its Hispano - Suiza engine were required for the S . E . 5a . Origins and design . Original concept . Albert Ball ' s interest in fighter aircraft design predated his first aerial victory . As early as 14 April 1916 , he had written home to his father about the plans for a new fighter " heaps better than the Hun Fokker " , although he made no claim that the plans were his own work . In a further letter he remarked that he could not post the plans , and was carrying them home the next time he received leave . Some writers have taken this to be an early reference to the design that eventually emerged as the A . F . B . 1 ; this has been since largely discounted , among other reasons because the A . F . B . 1 was designed around the new Hispano - Suiza engine , which places the commencement of serious design at sometime after August 1916 . It would be six months before the young pilot received his leave ; it seems to have been during this period he began drawing up his own ideas for specifications for a single seat fighter aircraft ; these he mailed to his father . The A . F . B . 1 prototype . The Austin Motor Company was one of several firms not part of the pre - war aircraft industry to receive contracts to build aircraft for the war effort . An early contract for examples of the R . E . 7 was followed by substantial contracts for the R . E . 8 and the S . E . 5a . Austins also opened their own design office sometime in late 1916 ; although several war - time Austin designed aircraft were built as prototypes none received production orders . The first of these was the A . F . B . 1 . Albert Ball Sr , was ( or had been ) on the Board of Directors of Austins , and was certainly in a position where he might have presented plans for new aircraft to the company . The position of Ball ’ s biographer Colin Pengelly seems to be that he most certainly did present his son ’ s ideas and drawings to the company , and that these formed at least the basis of the design of the A . F . B . 1 . Whatever the nature and extent of Ball ' s input , the bulk of the design work was carried out at Austins , under the leadership of C . H . Brooks . Ball arrived on home leave on 5 October 1916 , prior to taking up duty in England . By this time , Ball had scored 31 aerial victories , and was by far the most famous pilot in the RFC . In addition to his contacts with Austins , he used his celebrity to contact Sir David Henderson , Director - General of Military Aeronautics about the proposed fighter ; Ball subsequently also lobbied General Sefton Brancker . On 1 December 1916 , events had progressed to the point of the War Office formally requesting technical data from the motor company . Ball visited the Austin works that month . He recommended arming the plane with two Lewis gun s mounted on the centre section , and firing above the plane ' s propeller ; however , this arrangement was replaced by an installation patented by Herbert Austin , in which a Vickers machine gun fed by a 500 round belt of ammunition fired through a hollow propeller shaft . ( A Lewis gun seems to have been actually mounted in this position in the prototype as completed . ) A supplementary Lewis gun stocked with four 97 - round magazines was in the event mounted on the centre section . He also added a note at the end of the specifications sheet , dated 8 December 1916 , that the finished plane should have " neutral flying characteristics " . An internal memo critiqued the proposed design , with an eye toward its fitness for production . It was noted that , in an attempt to lower the plane ' s weight and thus increase its performance , it would only carry fuel enough for two hours running at full throttle . The relatively high design wing loading of 7 pounds per square foot might increase speed , but decrease manoeuvrability . Mounting of the engine exhaust pipes alongside the cockpit would hinder downward view . ( In the event shorter exhausts were fitted , that discharged forward and downwards . ) The A . F . B . 1 ' s " vaguely Germanic " appearance was also criticised . An endorsement atop the memo noted that Ball was to see Sefton Brancker . On 13 February 1917 , after Ball had seen Brancker , Austins requested a formal contract to produce the new fighter . It was issued soon after , for the fabrication of a pair of prototypes , although only one prototype was allocated a serial number , and this seems to have been after it was completed : suggesting it had been started , at least , as a private venture . At the time Ball returned to combat on 6 April 1917 , the prototype was still unfinished - Ball was thus thwarted in his desire to fly the A . F . B . 1 into combat , instead of the new Royal Aircraft Factory SE . 5 of which he had been initially disparaging . Construction of the prototype was in fact not completed until after Ball ' s death ; its first flight took place on 27 July 1917 . Description . The A . F . B . 1 was a biplane with unstaggered , equal - span wings . They had no dihedral but were slightly swept . The tailplane was rather large , and triangular in shape - the rudder on the other hand was a rather small balanced affair , with no vertical fin . While the fuselage was of conventional construction it was unusually deep , almost filling the gap between the planes , in the manner of the LFG Roland C . II . The portly dimensions of the fuselage made for a fairly clean engine installation - but the radiators were rather clumsily attached to the fuselage sides , in a position that must have interfered with the pilot ' s view forward and down past the nose . Apparently either could be bypassed to limit loss of coolant in the event of battle damage . An advanced feature was that the controls were operated by rods mounted within the airframe rather than cables carried externally , as was more usual at the time . The very small gap between the top wing and the fuselage gave the pilot excellent visibility above , but probably precluded the fitting of a standard Foster mounting for the upper Lewis gun ; existing photographic evidence points to a fixed gun pointing up at a slight angle to clear the propeller arc . This would not have been conducive to Ball ' s favourite attack from behind and below , as is often stated ( see illustrations ) , although if the type had gone into production it is possible that a variant of the Foster mounting would have been devised , to allow the Lewis to be fired at various upward angles , including the steep one favoured by Ball , as well as at a flat angle directly forwards . Flight testing and career . Only a single prototype was built . It was assigned the serial number B9909 , although this is not visible on surviving photographs of the type . Official flight testing started in July 1917 at RAF Martlesham Heath . Performance was excellent - it had about the same speed as the S . E . 5a , but climbed rather better . The only complaints about its handling were of rather poor lateral control ( early S . E . 5s had similar problems , which were quickly resolved ) . The S . E . 5a was by this time already in production , and was proving itself an excellent service type - it was however in chronically short supply , and this situation could only have been exacerbated by an attempt to introduce a new type that would have competed with it for production facilities ( Austins already had a large SE . 5a contract ) and engines ( since both fighters used the Hispano - Suiza 8 , of which there was at this stage a severe shortage ) . The A . F . B . 1 therefore had no real chance of being accepted for a production order . A photograph of an A . F . B . 1 exists with straight SPAD - type wings , complete with the usual SPAD mid - bay reinforcing of the interplane bracing . They may well have been , in fact , a pair of SPAD S . 7 wings . Nothing is known about when and why this modification was tried , or if it improved the characteristics or performance of the machine in any way . At the end of October 1917 , the testers at Martlesham Heath were instructed to remove the A . F . B . 1 ' s engine and ship it to Ascot by train . The fate of the aircraft after that is not reported .