It was designed by C.H. Brooks with the help of Albert Ball, which was flown, in prototype form for the first time in July 1917.
It was made out of wood with fabric covering and was powered by a 200hp Hispano-Suiza 8 V-8 water cooled.
It was armed initialy with a single 0.303in (7.7mm) Lewis machine-gun firing through the hollow propeller shaft plus another one mounted on a Foster above the upper wing section.
Originally the prototype had slightly swept back wings and conventional single-bay bracings, but during development process those were reverted back and also the traditional two-bay form interplane bracing were introduced. It flew for the first time with those modifications on 17th September 1917.
Just a single prototype was built with the serial number B9909 and testing results were excellent since it achieved nearly the same speed as the S.E.5a and could climb even better than that one. However, apparently it had poor lateral control, just like the earlier versions of the S.E.5 which were quickly solved.
As the S.E.5a was already in production and proved to be an excellent fighter, the A.F.B.1 had not real chance of being accepted into production, since the British authorities preferred to concentrate on the S.E.5a as it was in short supply.
It seems that further modifications were made since there's a photo of an A.F.B.1 with SPAD type wings, however further details of that modifications are unknown. Anyway, in late October 1917, the testers were instructed to remove the engine of the airplane and ship it to Ascot by train, most probably to install it into another airplane and since then the fate of the airplane is unknown.
Sources:
1. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of fighters
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin-Ball_A.F.B.1
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