Bristol F2B

I have heard many raves about the Brisfit, and the fact that it was still operational in places clear up to 1926 says a great deal, but...
What is the record of kills for this aircraft type? Many aces in it? Did it have a higher success rate in returning from missions than other types?
Despite all the raving about this, I have never heard much about it being a major killer like the SE-5A, SPAD XIII, and Camel. Also, I don't know if I've heard of many F2B aces.

Joe

[Lufbery]

Hi Joe,

I'm surprised nobody has responded to you yet. I hope somebody has some answers. In the meantime, I'll do some research and see what I can come up with.

Regards,

[Rod_Filan]

I believe the highest score achieved on the F2B was by Andrew McKeever. Second was another Canadian, Alfred Atkey.

I'm going by memory here so don't quote me on it, confirm it.

Always looking for an opportunity to bolster Canadians.

VBR
Rod

1AFC severly touched up the German and Ottoman Air Forces in Palestine flying Brisfits.

The top scoring pilot in the theatre Capt. Ross Smith (of England-Australia Fame) got his 12 in this type.

Several other pilot/obs combinations scored well in this squadron.

That's impressive!

Joe

[Lufbery]

Joe,

The 'Aces' section of this site has some fantastic information in it.

Check out the Australians. Thier 14th highest scoring ace is John Gordon -- an observer in a Biff with 15 kills (leaving aside for a moment the debate over claims versus kills, etc.). In fact from what I can tell, all of the Aussie observer aces flew in F2.bs.

Also check out Charles Gass, England's fifth highest scoring ace, with 39 victories from the back seat of a Biff.

One interesting note is that some of the observer aces had pilots who were not aces. This makes me wonder if those pilots flew in such a manner as to give their gunners the best shots.

I'm still trying to find an overview of the numbers built/fielded, number shot down, and victories attributed to the craft.

Regards

This is one of my all-time favorite aircraft, but compared to most of the folks in the forum, I'm far from being an expert. In any case, here's my two cents.

The reason I am so fond of it is because of it's versatility. In a period in history when the useful life of an aircraft was sometimes measured in months, the Bristol Fighter had a useful role to play from 1917 to its retirement in 1932; a decade and a half. Some units equipped with them were tasked with a variety of missions. For example, with this aircraft you could fly fighter patrols, do photo recon, and drop bombs, among other missions. Ergo, if you needed to do some kind of traditonal 2-seater work, your squadron had its own built-in escort. From what I can tell, RAF 20 Sqdn. had a particularly remarkable record of contributions to the war effort in all of these areas, even taking into account the "claimed vs. crash" considerations that hve been discussed here for the air-to-air stuff.

As to the flying aspect, of course it had only one forward-firing gun and either one or two guns for the observer, so its forward firepower was less than what most fighters had by 1918. I think the observation made earlier about some pilots not getting a large score because they flew to give their observers a shot was probably accurate; t's a shame we'll never know for sure, but I think the point is a good one. Aside from the disasterous first missions when they were figuring out how to best use this design, I don't believe it had a significantly better or worse rate of loss in combat than its contemporaries. Like its contemporaries they tried a number or different engines in it, with mixed results.

I seem to remember something about the pilots having to pay particular attention to their fuel management in this aircraft and I had a man who flew an exact replica (with a modern engine) tell me that at low speeds it is kind of like a sailboat in that the responses were not what they are at higher speeds and you kind of had to be on your toes. However but once you gut further away from stall speed it was a pleasure to fly. Of course, in most aircraft when you get close to stall speed you kind of need to be on your toes and the responses are a little different, so I'm not sure of how significant the difference was.

And besides - it's cool.

[Lufbery]

Great info, Brisfit. Thanks!

Here's a bit more information. Jane's Encyclopedia of Aviation says that "more that 5,100 Bristol Fighters were made during World War I and after." So, I'm still not sure about war time production, but at least we have total production.

Regards,

[stephen]

FWIW, I knew several men who flew Brisfits and they had nothing but the highest praise for their mount. John Purcell, Stanley Rycroft (1v), and at least one other member of 20 sqdn were alive well into the late 80's and spoke freely of their service days.

Wilfred Beaver was, of course, a high scoring ace in the Bristol as well. He was American/Canadian and I corrosponded with his family for some time shortly after his death.

So I think its fair to say that the Bristol made its share of aces, especially when you remember that many Bristol crews were routinely sent on recon, spotting or bombing missions and never had the chance to fly scout missions like the Camel and SE5 guys.