The first prototype, was built by Siddeley-Deasy, company that was soon incorporated into Armstrong Whitworth, and was designed by Major F.M. Green who was the former chief engineer of the Royal Aircraft Factory. Initally it was Siddeley-Deasy's candidate for the Type1 fighter for a single-seat fighter powered by the ABC Dragonfly radial engine.
The S.R.2 Siskin was a single-bay biplane made out of wood and fabric. Wings were of unequal span and it was fitted with a distinctive fixed landing gear equipped with long oleo strut shock absorbers carrying the axle which was connected to the Radius Rods by a pair of V-struts. The engine was fitted inside a streamlined cowling to reduce drag with each cylinder coming out through special holes designed for them. It was armed with a pair of 0,303 Vickers machine-guns placed at the sides of the frontern part of the airplane.
It flew first in May 1919 and the Dragonfly engine delivered 270hp of power, instead of the theorical 320hp and, in spite of all the expectations put on the Dragonfly engine, it proved to be a disaster as it was underpowered and it was very unreliable being very prone to overheating and causing an untolerable amount of vibration. Even if those were serious issues, the Siskin proved to handle better than it's Dragonfly powered competitors.
The second version, the Mk.II, derived directly from the Siddeley-Deasy S.R.2 which was adquired by Armstrong Whitworth after Siddeley-Deasy closed down their aviation department. It reatined the basic features of it's predecessor but, on the other hand, it was radically redesigned structurally. It embodied fuselage and wing spars of high-tensile steel tubing and strip. The engine was switched from the ABC Dragonfly to the newly built Armstrong-Siddeley Jaguar 14-cylinder two-row that could deliver 325hp of power. It was armed, as the Siddeley-Deasy Siskin, with a pair of 0,303 Vickers machine-guns.
It appeared in August 1922 and the second one was completed in October 1923 but it failed to attract production order so it was sold to the Swedish Aircraft Company of the Signal Corps (the forerunner of the Swedish air force) where it was fitted with skis to make it able to land under winter conditions.
Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armstrong_Whitworth_Siskin
2. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of FIghters
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