Royal Aircraft Factory BE.2
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| RAF BE.2c | ||
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| Missing image RAFBE2.jpg Image:RAFBE2.jpg | ||
| Description | ||
| Role | reconnaissance | |
| Crew | two, pilot and observer | |
| First flight | February 1912 | |
| Entered service | August 1914 | |
| Manufacturer | Royal Aircraft Factory, Vickers, Bristol | |
| Dimensions | ||
| Length | 27 ft 3 in | 8.31 m |
| Wingspan | 37 ft | 11.28 m |
| Height | 11 ft 1 in | 3.4 m |
| Wing area | 398ft² | 37m² |
| Weights | ||
| Empty | 1,366 lb | 621 kg |
| Loaded | lb | kg |
| Maximum takeoff | 2,138 lb | 972 kg |
| Powerplant | ||
| Engines | 1 x RAF-1a | |
| Power | 70 hp | 52 kW |
| Performance | ||
| Maximum speed | 72 mph | 116 km/h |
| Range | 200 miles | 320 km |
| Service ceiling | 10,000 ft | 3,028 m |
| Rate of climb | 325 ft/min | 1,066 m/min |
| Armament | ||
| Guns | 1 x 0.303 in (7.7 mm) Lewis machine gun for observer | |
| Bombs | 224 lb | 102 kg |
The Royal Aircraft Factory BE.2 (Blériot Experimental) was the first military aircraft put into service by Britain. Nicknamed "Quirk", variants of it continued in use by the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service throughout World War I, long after the type was obsolete.
The BE.2 was designed by Geoffrey de Havilland as a development of the BE.1 and first flew in February 1912 with de Havilland as the test pilot. Shortly afterwards it set a new British altitude record of 10,560 ft (3219 m). It was ordered into production as a reconnaissance machine, and two years later, equipped three observation squadrons. These were all sent to France shortly after the outbreak of war.
The aircraft's greatest weakness was that it was a product of a time when aircraft design philosophies over-emphasised the value of stability, resulting in designs like the BE.2 which were severely lacking in maneuverability. While stability was indeed an asset to a reconnaissance machine, the degree of maneuverability that had been sacrificed to obtain it made it easy prey for enemy fighters, and BE.2 squadrons took terrible losses. This extreme vulnerability led German pilots to nickname it kaltes Fleisch ("cold meat") and British ace Albert Ball to sum it up as "a bloody awful aeroplane". In 1917 a flight of six BE.2s set off from St Omer for Candas. One crashed in transit, three crashed on landing and one went missing. The survivor, Lieutenant A.S.G. Lee, said:
- I felt rather a cad not crashing too because everyone is glad to see death-traps like Quirks written off, especially new ones.
The aircraft underwent various refinements during its service career, mostly concerned with improving engine performance and controllability. These resulted in the BE.2b through BE.2e subtypes. Aircraft from the BE.2c onwards mounted a defensive machine gun for the observer. From 1917 onwards, the BE.2 was mostly withdrawn from the front-line, but continued in use for submarine spotting, Zeppelin defence, and as a trainer. It was in the role of Zeppelin interceptor that the type achieved fame out of proportion with the rest of its performance. On the night of August 3 1916, a BE.2 flown by Captain William Leefe Robinson downed the first Zeppelin to be shot down over Britain, winning Robinson a Victoria Cross and cash prizes totaling £3,500 that had been put up by a number of individuals for the first Zeppelin kill.
Some 3,500 BE.2s were built by over 20 different manufacturers, and it formed the basis for a dedicated (but unsuccessful) fighter version, the BE.12. A number of aircraft are preserved at museums around the world, including the Imperial War Museum, Duxford; the RAF Museum, Hendon; the Canada Aviation Museum in Ottawa, the Musée de l'Air et de L'Espace, Paris; the Militaire Luchtvaartmuseum, Soesterberg, Netherlands; and the Forsvarets Flysamling museum in Oslo Airport, Norway.
| Related development | |
| Similar aircraft | |
| Designation series | |
| Related lists |
List of aircraft of the RAF - List of reconnaissance aircraft |
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