The SE5a, rival of the Camel for the title of the most successful British fighter of the First World War, was designed by H. P. Folland. J. Kenworthy and Major F. W. Goodden of the Royal Aircraft Factory.

The prototype S.E.5, A4561, appeared in December 1916; it had the new 150 h.p. Hispano-Suiza engine with a car-type radiator and short exhaust manifolds. The wings had wire-braced spruce spars; in place of compression struts, some ribs were of solid construction. The tail-plane incidence could be changed in flight. A wire-braced wooden box girder, the fuselage was fabric-covered except for plywood sides from the nose to the front spar of the lower wing, with plywood round the cockpit. The main fuel tank was behind the engine, and there was a gravity tank to port of the center section.

In January 1917 the wings of the prototype collapsed in flight, and Major Goodden was killed. The main planes of subsequent machines were strengthened, their span was reduced and blunter tips were fitted. A few of the early production aircraft, however, retained the wing plan of the first two prototypes.

A Vickers gun, fixed on the port side of the fuselage with its breech inside the cockpit, fired through the air-screw by means of the Constantinesco synchronizing gear, A Lewis gun on a Foster mounting could be fired ahead over the top wing or directly upwards.

A modified version, the SE5a, powered by the 200 h.p. geared Hispano-Suiza engine, was introduced in June 1917. It had a rather deeper nose than that of the SES, radiator shutters and long exhaust pipes. The standard faired head-rest was frequently removed to improve the rearward view. From December 1917, the front struts of the undercarriage vees were strengthened.

The geared 200 h.p. engine suffered from manufacturing faults, and there were frequent failures; in addition, engine construction lagged behind airframe manufacture, and the S.E.5a was not available in quantity until well into 1918. Eventually the Wolseley W.4a Viper 200 h.p. engine, based on the Hispano-Suiza, became standard and there were no more engine difficulties. The Viper's radiator was square and bulky, with short horizontal shutters.

Both friend and foe recognized the SE5a as a formidable fighting machine; it was fast, extremely strong and easy to fly. Superior to the Albatros D-III and D-V. the Pfalz D-III and the Fokker Dr-1. it was not outclassed when the excellent Fokker D-VII appeared in May 1918. It is significant that the SESa was the mount of Mannock (seventy-three victories), Bishop (seventy-two), McCudden (fifty-seven) and Beauchamp-Proctor (fifty-four). Some machines of No; 24 Squadron were rigged with reduced dihedral to improve their maneuverability. A total of 5,205 SE5s and 5as was constructed.

"The S.E.5 has turned out a dud... It's a great shame, for everybody expects such a lot from them... it is a rotten machine."

Albert Ball wrote these words in the spring of 1917, after he had been dragged back from active service on the Western Front, along with a group of Britain's finest pilots, to form a new fighter group based on the all-important Scout Experimental 5. The see-saw that was taking place in the skies over France had turned once again, this time Germany's way. The Albatros Scouts were faster, had a higher ceiling, could climb quicker and, above all, were out-gunning their Allied opponents.

During the previous winter, the British Air Staff threw down the gauntlet to the fledgling British aircraft industry. 'Build us', they said, 'a single-seater with speed, maneuverability and armament superior to the enemy.' The challenge was taken up by the Royal Aircraft Factory, based at Farnborough, and by Sopwith Aviation. That both succeeded is now history. The S.E.5's only serious contender for the best British fighter of World War I was the Sopwith Camel.

The Royal Aircraft Factory's design team of H.P. Folland, J. Kenworthy and Major F.W. Goodden was most impressed with a new aero-engine from Hispano-Suiza. Unlike so many successful engines of this time it did not have rotary cylinders. It was a water-cooled V8. It offered 150hp, a considerable increase over most engines currently available, yet with a weight of only 3301b. As a first step they installed the Hispano-Suiza 8A into the B.E.2c, which was being regularly shot out of the sky by Halberstadt's, Albatros and Roland's almost at will. This tremendous upsurge in power transformed the gentle old B.E. But power alone wasn't the answer. The aircraft required something extra.

The RAF designers went back to the drawing board and produced a tough square-rigged single-seater that made no compromises whatsoever to aesthetics. The S.E.5 was born to fly fast and hard. It gave the pilot excellent vision, but its greatest advantage was its built-in stability. The S.E.5's predecessors, the R.E.s and B.E.s, had needed stability for accurate observation. Now the much faster, more manoeuvrable S.E.5 would turn this into a priceless asset.

If you line your aircraft up behind your target and pull the trigger, you'll destroy your opponent much faster if you have a steady gun platform. That lesson, learned the hard way in the trenches below, was equally valid in the skies above. And so, despite their early protests, Britain's crack pilots began to train on the new aeroplane.

Albert Ball immediately took the Lewis gun off its mounting above the upper wing, preferring to rely on the Vickers with its Constantinesco synchronization. He re moved the cumbersome windscreen. He even lowered the seat by 8in. All this was carried out to increase the S.E.5's speed. At the time he believed the aircraft was slower than his beloved Nieuport, although this was not in fact the case.

In time, the British aces began to realize they were on to a winner. Despite its frumpish appearance, they found the S.E.5 was faster and had a higher ceiling than they had believed possible. More important, its fuel capacity gave an endurance of two and a half hours, which was much longer than the Albatros Scouts. So they would be able to climb high and stay high, waiting for the opposition to appear below them.

In all, over 5000 S.E.5s and S.E.5as were built, the vast majority being 5as with the more powerful engine. The aircraft remains a lesson to fighter designers of today speed and maneuverability, vital as they are, are not everything. If you cannot deliver your weapons from a stable platform, you are unlikely to achieve your objective. Although the S.E.5a accounted for fewer kills than its great Allied rival the Sopwith Camel, its total victory count ranks as one of the highest per aircraft of the war.

BILLY BISHOP
The most conspicuous symbol of the indomitable zeal in the RFC was the charming Canadian roughneck Billy Bishop, who had managed to get to the front as a combat pilot despite a checkered training record that had landed him on home defense duty in England.

The chances were slim of a rookie pilot in a Nieuport surviving a face off with a new Albatros. But Billy Bishop responded to individual combat with a swift instinct that even the Richthofen brothers could not surpass. "I had a quick impulse," Bishop said, "and flew straight at the attacking machine." He drove the enemy plane into the ground with such a wild, gun-rattling dive that Bishop's own engine sputtered and seemed about to die. He saved himself with a lightning pull-out followed by a masterful landing in the shell-pocked mud, a bare 300 yards from the German line.

Billy Bishop had found his calling. German planes began to fall almost like rain before his guns: by the end of the summer of 1917 he had the astounding total of 47 victories. "I had found the one thing I loved above all others,he recalled. "To me it was not a business or a profession, but just a wonderful game."

Playing the game with a joyous vengeance, Bishop spent Easter Sunday engaging three planes and a balloon before taking on five German planes in a single-handed attack that left two planes burning on the ground-and left Bishop's squadron mates with the impression that "I was some sort of wild man from the zoo." Soon he was awarded the Military Cross and was granted permission to fly alone if he preferred- which he often did. One day in June he set off at dawn for a solitary raid on a German airfield far behind the lines. There, he reported, he destroyed three enemy planes, one after the other, as they rose to meet him. Although there were no friendly witnesses to confirm the exploit. Bishop received the Victoria Cross.

Specifications for the SE5a

Length: 20 ft 11 in Wingspan: 26 ft 7 in Height: 9 ft 6 in Wing area: 444 ft² Empty weight: 1,410 lb Loaded weight: 1,935 lb Max takeoff weight: 1,988 lb Performance Maximum speed: 138 mph Range: 300 miles Service ceiling: 17,000 ft Wing loading: lb/ft² Armament 1x 0.303 in (7.7 mm) forward-firing Vickers machine gun with Constantinesco interrupter gear 1x .303 in (7.7 mm) Lewis gun on Foster mounting on upper wing 4x 18kg Cooper bombs, two under each lower wing, to be dropped in 2, 3, 4, 1 order.

A: Aircraft in World War I were built as light as possible to save weight. The skeleton frame was usually made of wood with a fabric skin.	B: All RFC aircraft carried large and vivid national markings, but like their counterparts in World War II they still found that friendly ground troops would shoot at them.

A: The Lewis machine gun mounted on the wing was magazine fed, and could be swung down on a rail to change its magazine. lt could also fire up.	B: Visibility from the S.E.5's cockpit was excellent, although the long inline engine obscured the view ahead more than in its snub- nosed contemporary, the Sopwith Camel.	C: The 200-hp. Hispano-Suiza engine gave the S.E.5 its superior speed. It had teething problems however and most aircraft had the less temperamental Wolseley Viper engine fitted instead.	D: The wedge-shaped tail, which was much more modern-looking than those of its contemporaries, was a key recognition feature of the S.E.5.