The Starling was developed to meet the requeriments of the Air Ministry's specification 28/24 for a single-seat fighter able of operating under both day and night conditions replacing the Siskin that way. It was a single-bay sesquiplane with staggered unequal span wings. Fuselage consisted on welded steel-tube structure, the wings had steel spars and wooden ribs were fitted with ailerons on the upper wings only. It was armed with two Vickers 0.303 machine guns.
Two prototypes were built, the first one was powered by a 385hp Armstrong Siddeley Jaguar VII engine and flew for the first time on 12th May 1927, as it was underpowered, it was re-fitted with a 460hp Jaguar V but the performance was still disappointing since the prototype couldn't exceed the speed of 260km/h and didn't achieve the expected 290km/h. The low speed handling was poor too. It was evaluated again later, for the specification F.9/26 in February 1926 but it was rejected as the specification was won by the Bristol Buldog. Since then, the first prototype was returned to Armstrong Whitworth where it was slightly refitted and given a civilian registration in May 1929 and was shown at Olympia in London from July 1929 until December 1930 when it was cancelled from the registration.
The second prototype was heavily redesigned in order to feature more streamlined fuselage, wings and, in spite of the Clark YH Aerofoil section, had smaller lower wings. It featured a 525hp Armstrong Siddeley Panther II engine and flew for the first time on 5th December 1929. It was evaluated in two categories, as a land-based interceptor and as a naval-based interceptor to meet the requeriments of the N.21/26 specification. Even if the performance improved from the first prototype, it wasn't good enough for the Air Ministry requirements, but it carried out some development for the Armstrong Whitworth AW.16.
Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armstrong_Whitworth_Starling
2. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters
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