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 he Handley Page Type O was a biplane bomber used by Britain during the First World War . When built, the Type O was the largest aircraft that had been built in the UK and one of the largest in the world. There were two main variants, the Handley Page O/100 (H.P.11) and the Handley Page O/400 (H.P.12). The aircraft were used in France for tactical night attacks on targets in German-occupied France and Belgium and for strategic bombing of industrial and transport targets in the Rhineland . Some aircraft were temporarily diverted to anti-submarine reconnaissance and bombing in the Tees estuary in 1917 and two aircraft operated in the eastern Mediterranean. The Type O made such an impression that for many years after the war any large aircraft in Britain was referred to as a "Handley Page", even getting a dictionary entry. [1]

  The Sopwith Camel was a British First World War single-seat biplane fighter aircraft that was introduced on the Western Front in 1917. It was developed by the Sopwith Aviation Company as a successor to the Sopwith Pup and became one of the best known fighter aircraft of the Great War. The Camel was powered by a single rotary engine and was armed with twin synchronized Vickers machine guns. Though difficult to handle, it was highly manoeuvrable in the hands of an experienced pilot, a vital attribute in the relatively low-speed, low-altitude dogfights of the era. In total, Camel pilots have been credited with downing 1,294 enemy aircraft, more than any other Allied fighter of the conflict. Towards the end of the First World War, the type also saw use as a ground-attack aircraft, partly because the capabilities of fighter aircraft on both sides had advanced rapidly and left the Camel somewhat outclassed. The main variant of the Camel was designated as the F.1 . Ot...

  The Hawker Hurricane is a British single-seat fighter aircraft of the 1930s–40s that was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd. for service with the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was overshadowed in the public consciousness by the Supermarine Spitfire 's role during the Battle of Britain in 1940, but the Hurricane inflicted 60 percent of the losses sustained by the Luftwaffe in the engagement, and fought in all the major theatres of the Second World War. The Hurricane originated from discussions between RAF officials and aircraft designer Sir Sydney Camm about a proposed monoplane derivative of the Hawker Fury biplane in the early 1930s. Despite an institutional preference for biplanes and lack of interest from the Air Ministry , Hawker refined their monoplane proposal, incorporating several innovations which became critical to wartime fighter aircraft, including retractable landing gear and the more powerful Rolls-Royce Merlin engine. The Air Ministr...

  The Eurofighter Typhoon is a European twin-engine , canard delta wing , multirole fighter . [3] [4] The Typhoon was designed originally as an air superiority fighter [5] and is manufactured by a consortium of Airbus , BAE Systems and Leonardo that conducts the majority of the project through a joint holding company , Eurofighter Jagdflugzeug GmbH . The NATO Eurofighter and Tornado Management Agency , representing the UK, Germany, Italy and Spain manages the project and is the prime customer. [6] The aircraft's development effectively began in 1983 with the Future European Fighter Aircraft programme, a multinational collaboration among the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Previously, Germany, Italy and the UK had jointly developed and deployed the Panavia Tornado combat aircraft and desired to collaborate on a new project, with additional participating EU nations. However disagreements over design authority and operational requirements led France to leave the ...

The Supermarine Spitfire is a British single-seat fighter aircraft that was used by the Royal Air Force and other Allied countries before, during, and after World War II . Many variants of the Spitfire were built, using several wing configurations, and it was produced in greater numbers than any other British aircraft. [ citation needed ] It was also the only British fighter produced continuously throughout the war. The Spitfire continues to be popular among enthusiasts; nearly 60 remain airworthy , and many more are static exhibits in aviation museums throughout the world. The Spitfire was designed as a short-range, high-performance interceptor aircraft by R. J. Mitchell , chief designer at Supermarine Aviation Works, which operated as a subsidiary of Vickers-Armstrong from 1928. Mitchell pushed the Spitfire's distinctive elliptical wing with cutting-edge sunken rivets (designed by Beverley Shenstone ) [4] to have the thinnest possible cross-section, helping give t...

Buoyant over the success of their 1902 glider, the Wright brothers were no longer content to merely add to the growing body of aeronautical knowledge; they were going to invent the airplane. Still, they recognized that much hard work lay ahead, especially the creation of a propulsion system. During the spring and summer of 1903, they were consumed with leaping that final hurdle into history. On December 17, 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright made four brief flights at Kitty Hawk with their first powered aircraft. The Wright brothers had invented the first successful airplane.