| Felixstowe F.3 | |
|---|---|
| Felixstowe F3 | |
| Role | Military flying boat |
| Manufacturer | Short Brothers Dick, Kerr & Co. Phoenix Dynamo Manufacturing Company Malta Dockyard |
| Designer | J C Porte, |
| First flight | February 1917 |
| Introduction | 1917 |
| Primary users | RNAS RAF US Navy |
| Number built | 182 |
| Developed from | Felixstowe F.2 |
| Variants | Felixstowe F.5 Felixstowe F5L |
The Felixstowe F.3 was a British First World War flying boat designed by Lieutenant Commander John Cyril Porte RN of the Seaplane Experimental Station, Felixstowe the successor to the Felixstowe F.2
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The Felixstowe F.2a entered production and service as a patrol aircraft, with about 100 being completed by the end of World War I. In February 1917, the first prototype of the Felixstowe F.3 was flown. This was a larger and heavier development of the F.2a, powered by two 320 hp (239 kW) Sunbeam Cossack engines.[1] Large orders followed, with the production aircraft powered by Rolls-Royce Eagles. The F.3s larger size gave it greater range and heavier bomb load than the F2, but poorer speed and agility. Approximately 100 Felixstowe F.3s were produced before the end of the war, including 18 built in the dockyards at Malta.[2]
The Felixstowe F.5 was intended to combine the good qualities of the F.2 and F.3, with the prototype first flying in May 1918. The prototype showed superior qualities to its predecessors but the production version was modified to make extensive use of components from the F3, in order to ease production, giving lower performance than either the F.2a or F.3.
The Felixstowe was re-exported to America, and a re-jigged Felixstowe/Curtiss with the Curtiss Company, provided the basis for NC-4 which was the first plane to fly the Atlantic.
The larger F3, which was less popular with its crews than the more maneuverable F2a, served in the Mediterranean as well as the North Sea.
Data from British Naval Aircraft since 1912 [3]
General characteristics
Performance
Armament
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