The F.1 was designed in late 1915 as a two-seat tractor fighter biplane where the gunner sat in the forward cockpit and stood upright to fire a 0.303 Lewis on a mount built into the upper wing central section.
It was powered by a 250hp Rolls-Royce Mk.III engine (which later was known as the Rolls-Royce Eagle III). It suffered from many development delays and, when it was officialy tested in July 1917, it was already obsolete although it showed good handling capabilites but the rare crew arrangement was criticised. As expected, it wasn't ordered into production and only one prototype, of two expected, was built. It served as a model and was used in Farnborough (where Martinsyde's headquarters were) until the end of the war as a testbed for another models, mainly the famous F.4 Buzzard.
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| The only known pic of the Martinsyde F.1 |
Sources:
1. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martinsyde_F.1
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