Fairey IIIF

[Dave Homewood]

This is an unusual angle on the lovely Fairey IIIF biplane.


Her special duty of co-operation work with the New Zealand Artillery in the practice shoots of the mobile anti-aircraft units having been completed, the Royal New Zealand Air Force's Fairey IIIF monoplane left Rongotai Aerodrome yesterday morning on her return flight to Auckland. This picture was taken just after the take-off.
The Dominion, 19 November 1937

[davidd]

That's a mononplane? Who would have thought! Seriously though, it is just possible to see what were called (by Fairey) as "Fairey patent camber changing flaps" for which many advantaages were claimed and described. Quite a few Fairey types of the late 1920s and 30s were fitted with such flaps. They were arranged on both upper and lower mainplanes, and incorporated the ailerons into the overall effect. Although not explained in "Janes All The World's Aircraft", these "flaps" were raised and lowered to any chosen angle by a large hand wheel control in the fuselage (presume by pilot). The incidence-adjustable tailplane was of the screw-jack adjustable type (again operated by a large hand-operated wheel with assistance of wire cables). No doubt there are good articles published elsewhere (in "The Aeroplane" and "Flight" of the period) of these "patented flaps". Incidentally, it was a mistake to call this type of aircraft a Fairey 111F, it was a IIIF (that is, III, or eye eye eye, and not 111, or one one one). This was one of the very few widely-used aircraft in the interwar RAF without a "proper" name, just a silly one.

[Dave Homewood]

It is extra special David, it has two monoplanes.

[davidd]

Tricky Dave!!

[Dave Homewood]

Regarding the 111F, I just checked and it was the Papers Past AI text reader that converted the correct caption with IIIF to the wrong designation.

I got it write in my title though. I'll fix the error in the caption, which I'd not spotted.