Bristol Scout The Bristol Scout was a simple , single seat , rotary - engined biplane originally intended as a civilian racing aircraft . Like other similar fast , light aircraft of the period - it was acquired by the RNAS and the RFC as a " scout " , or fast reconnaissance type . In the event it was one of the first single - seaters to be used as a fighter aircraft , although it was not possible to fit it with an effective forward - firing armament until the first British synchronisation gears became available , by which time the Scout ' s design was outmoded by later types . Single seat fighters continued to be called " scouts " in British usage into the early 1920s . Development . The prototype for the Bristol Scout was designed in the second half of 1913 by Frank Barnwell and Harry Busteed . The first flight was first on 23 February 1914 by Busteed , and it was first shown to the public at the March 1914 London Olympia exhibition centre ' s Aero Show event . It had the " racing " lines fashionable in light single seaters of the 1913 – 1914 period , with characteristics such as a main landing gear wheel track measured at only 39 inches ( 99 cm ) that was barely wider than the fuselage , only about a one half degree dihedral angle on the wing panels , making them look almost totally " flat " across from a nose - on view , and an engine cowl that had no open frontal area , even though the extreme bottom was sliced away horizontally to allow cooling air to get to its seven - cylinder 80 hp Gnome Lambda rotary engine . It was fitted with a squared - planform " all - flying " rudder with no fixed vertical fin , similar to that used on contemporary Nieuport , Morane , and Fokker types . Operational history . The period of service of the Bristol Scout ( 1914 to 1916 ) marked the genesis of the fighter aircraft as a distinct type , and many of the earliest attempts to arm British " tractor " aircraft with weaponry were tested in action using Bristol Scouts . These began with the arming of the second Scout B , RFC number 648 , with two rifles , one per side , aimed outwards and forwards to clear the propeller arc . Two of the Royal Flying Corps ' early Bristol Scout C aircraft , numbers 1609 and 1611 , flown by Captain Lanoe Hawker with the RFC ' s No . 6 Squadron , were each in their turn , armed with a single Lewis machine gun on the left side of the fuselage , within a mount that Capt . Hawker had designed himself , almost identically to the manner of the rifles tried on the second Scout B . When Hawker ' s No . 1611 aircraft was used by him to down two German aircraft and force off a third on 25 July 1915 over Passchendaele and Zillebeke he was awarded the first Victoria Cross ever given for a British military pilot ' s actions in aerial combat . A number of the 24 initial production RNAS ' Scout C aircraft were armed with one ( or occasionally , two ) Lewis machine guns , sometimes with the Lewis gun mounted atop the upper wing centre section in the manner of the Nieuport 11 , and even more common was a very dubious choice of placement by some RNAS pilots , in mounting the Lewis gun on the forward fuselage of their Scout Cs , just as if it were a synchronized weapon ( which it was not ) firing directly forward and through the propeller arc ; an action likely to result in serious propeller damage . The type of bullet - deflecting wedges as Roland Garros had tried on his Morane - Saulnier Type N monoplane were also tried on one of the RFC ' s last Scout Cs , No . 5303 , but since this seemed , in this instance , to have also required the use of the Morane Type N ' s immense " casserole " spinner , which almost totally blocked cooling air from reaching this particular Scout C ' s 80 - hp Le Rhône rotary engine , the deflecting - wedge concept for propeller protection from bullets was not pursued further with Bristol Scouts . In the early part of the war , in attempts to down German Zeppelin airships , one unusual weapon tried from a RNAS Scout D was the Ranken Dart , a type of droppable , explosive - laden flechette with 1 lb ( 0 . 45 kg ) of explosive per projectile . Scout D No . 8953 , flown by Flt . Lt . C . T . Freeman , flew from the deck of the flight - deck - converted Isle of Man packet steamer HMS " Vindex " ( formerly with the civilian name " Viking " ) , which possessed a takeoff deck on its forward half , and on 2 August 1916 , Flt Lt . Freeman tried to down the Zeppelin L . 17 with Ranken Darts , released from two vertically oriented internal cylindrical containers located just behind his feet , in the belly of his Scout D . None of the darts did any damage to the Zeppelin , and since Freeman ' s aircraft could not land back on the " Vindex " , and was too far from land for a safe return , he had to ditch his Scout D in the ocean after the unsuccessful attack . In March 1916 , the RFC Bristol Scout C No . 5313 was fitted with a Vickers machine gun , synchronised to fire through the propeller by the bulky Vickers - Challenger synchronising gear , the only such gear available to the RFC at the time . Six other Scouts , both late Scout Cs and early Scout Ds , were also fitted with the same combination . Types using this particular gear successfully ( including the B . E . 12 , the R . E . 8 and the Vickers F . B . 19 ) all mounted the gun on the port side of the fuselage . The attempt to use the gear for synchronising a centrally mounted gun on the Bristol Scout proved unsuccessful , and tests , which continued at least until May 1916 , resulted in the abandonment of the idea , and no Vickers - armed Bristol Scout was ever used on operations . None of the RFC or RNAS squadrons operating the Bristol Scout was ever entirely equipped with this aircraft , and by the end of the summer of 1916 , no new Bristol Scout aircraft were being supplied to the British squadrons of either service , the early fighter squadrons in RFC service being equipped instead with the Airco DH . 2 single seat " pusher " fighter . A small number of Bristol Scouts were sent to the Middle East ( in Egypt , Macedonia , Mesopotamia , and Palestine ) in 1916 with the last known Bristol Scout in military service being the former RNAS Scout D No . 8978 in Australia , which was based at Point Cook , near Melbourne , as late as October 1926 . Once the Bristol Scouts were no longer required for front line service they were officially classed as " trainers " . In fact most were not sent to training units , however , but retained by senior officers as personal " run - abouts " . Variants . Scout A . After its first public appearance , by May 1914 what would later become known as the " Bristol Scout A " had been refitted with a longer span - at 24 ft 7 in ( 7 . 49 m ) set of wing panels that were rigged with ° of dihedral , replacing the initial 22 ft ( 6 . 71 m ) span panels , a larger surface area rudder , and a much more conventional open - front , ring - style , " six segment " cowl to house the 80 hp Gnôme Lambda rotary engine . The British military first evaluated the Scout A aircraft on 14 May 1914 , at Farnborough , when the aircraft achieved a top airspeed of 97 . 5 mph ( 157 km / h ) . The Scout A also entered two air races in the summer of 1914 after being purchased by British Lord Carbery for £400 without its engine . Flying with an 80 hp Le Rhône 9C nine - cylinder rotary installed by its purchaser it was ditched in the English Channel during the second air race it participated in ; a round trip from Hendon in the UK to the French Buc aerodrome ( near Versailles ) and back , due to its running out of fuel . While in France , the tanks had been only half - filled by mistake . Scout B . Two Scout B aircraft , identical to the modified Scout A aircraft with the 80 hp Gnôme Lambda rotary for power , except for having half - hoop - style underwing skids mounted on them , and a widened rudder surface , were built for military evaluation just as the Austro - Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot in Sarajevo Bosnia . The outbreak of the First World War followed shortly . These two Scout B aircraft , bearing Royal Flying Corps serial numbers 644 and 648 , first saw evaluational service from 20 September 1914 , with the first one , serial number 644 , being damaged beyond repair on 12 November of that year in a crash landing . Type 1 Scout C . The Type 1 Scout C aircraft , very similar to the previous Scout B , was first ordered by the British government on 5 November 1914 , in a 12 aircraft production batch for the Royal Flying Corps , and on 7 December 1914 , by the competing Royal Naval Air Service ( RNAS ) in a 24 - aircraft batch . Both these first two production batches of the Scout C aircraft were powered by the 80 hp Gnôme Lambda rotary , just as the Scout A had been , and when compared to the Scout B before it , these first 36 Scout C aircraft were fitted out with unusual " dome - front " cowls with much smaller frontal openings than the Scout B ' s six segment cowl had possessed . These early Scout C aircraft also had their main oil tank moved to a position directly behind the pilot ' s shoulders , requiring a raised rear dorsal fairing immediately behind the pilot ' s seat , to accommodate the oil tank and its filler cap . Later Scout C production batches , comprising 50 aircraft built for the RNAS and 75 for the RFC , changed the cowl to a flat - fronted , and longer - depth version more able to house the alternate choice of a nine cylinder , 80 hp Le Rhône 9C rotary engine when the Gnôme Lambda was not used , and moved the oil tank forward to a position in front of the pilot , for better weight distribution and more reliable engine operation . The later cowl for the remaining Scout C aircraft still had the small opening of the domed unit , but often had a small cutaway made to the lower rear edge of the cowl to increase the cooling effect , and to allow any unburned fuel / oil mix to drain away . Types 2 , 3 , 4 and 5 Scout D . The last , and most numerous production version , the Scout D , gradually came about as a series of further improvements to the Scout C design . One of the earliest changes that marked the change to the Scout D version showed up on seventeen of the 75 naval Scout Cs with an increase in the wing dihedral angle from ° to 3° , and other aircraft in the 75 - plane naval Scouts production run introduced a larger span horizontal set of tail surfaces and a broadened - chord rudder , shorter - span ailerons , and a large front opening for the cowl , much like the Scout B had used , but made as a " one - piece " ring cowl , sometimes with a blister on the starboard lower side for more efficient exhaust - gas scavenging , as it was meant to house the eventual choice of the more powerful , nine - cylinder 100 hp Gnôme Monosoupape rotary engine in later production batches , to improve its performance . Some 210 examples of the Scout D version were produced , with 80 of these being ordered by the RNAS , and the other 130 being ordered by the Royal Flying Corps .