Trio of Royal Aircraft Factory SE5a Flying Away From Camera Over Fields & Woodland Into Pale Blue Sky with White Clouds

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The Royal Aircraft Factory was a British biplane fighter aircraft of the First World War. Although the first examples reached the Western Front before the Sopwith Camel, and it had a much better overall performance, problems with its Hispano-Suiza engine meant that there was a chronic shortage of until well into 1918 and fewer squadrons were equipped with the type than with the Sopwith fighter. Together with the Camel, the was instrumental in regaining allied air superiority in the summer of 1917 - and maintaining this for the rest of the war. Only 77 original aircraft were built before production settled on the improved The differed from late production examples of the only in the type of engine installed - a geared 200 hp Hispano-Suiza 8b replacing the 150 hp model. In total 5,265 were built by six manufacturers.

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Size: 5120px × 3413px
Location: England UK Great Britain
Photo credit: © wyrdlight / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: .303, ace, aircfraft, bag, bi-plane, billy, bishop, british, corps, cross, edward, engine, factory, flying, gear, great, gun, hispano-suiza, interupter, james, landing, lewis, mannock, mccudden, pilot, royal, se5a, string, synchronised, vc, vickers, victoria, war, ww1, wwi