Saturday, 19 December 2015

Hispano Barron

Today we show you a rare Spanish native airplane.

In 1919 the Hispano company wanted to take part on the fighter airplane contest to be held that same year and they hired the designer Eduardo Barron (the same who designed the Barron W) to design their airplane.

Barron, who, back in 1917 had supervised the construction of a copy of the SPAD S.VII at Hereter workshop, called Pujol Comabella España took inspiration from that airplane. The fighter designed by Barron was a single-bay unstaggered wooden biplane with fabric skinned and powered by a 180hp Hispano-Suiza 8A eight cylinder water cooled engine.

It was armed with a 7,7mm machine-gun in the upper-wing. (The drawing depicted below is unarmed because that's how it took part on the 1919 contest).

During the contest it was flown by the Chilean pilot Luis O'Page and competed against two other native fighter designs: The Hereter T.H. (AKA Alfaro 8) and the Diaz Type C. This last one eventually won the contest. Contest which proved to be pointless because it resulted cheaper to buy surplus better airplanes from the already over Great War.


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