Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2

B.E.2
B.E.2c
Role	Reconnaissance, light bomber, night fighter, trainer, coastal patrol aircraft
Manufacturer	Royal Aircraft Factory, Vickers, Bristol
Designer	Geoffrey de Havilland, E.T. Busk
First flight	1 February 1912
Introduction	1912
Retired	1919
Primary user	Royal Flying Corps
Number built	~ 3,500
Variants	B.E.9, B.E.12

The Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2 was a British single-engine tractor two-seat biplane in service with the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) from 1912 until the end of World War I. About 3,500 were built. Initially used as front-line reconnaissance aircraft and light bombers; variants of the type were also used as night fighters. Like many warplanes since, the B.E.2 was retained in front-line service long after it had become obsolete, for want of a suitable replacement. After its belated withdrawal it finally served as a trainer, communications aircraft and on anti-submarine coastal patrol duties.

While the type was designed and developed by the Royal Aircraft Factory, the majority of production aircraft were built under contract by private companies, including well known manufacturers as well as firms that had not previously built aircraft.

The B.E.2 has always been the subject of a good deal of controversy. While it proved fundamentally unsuited to air-to-air combat it had a relatively low accident rate, and its notorious stability actually proved helpful in its artillery observation and aerial photography duties.

Background

The B.E.2 was one of the first aircraft designed at what was then called the Royal Balloon Factory (renamed the Royal Aircraft Factory in 1912) under the direction of Mervyn O'Gorman. Its designation followed the system devised by O'Gorman which classified aircraft by their layout: B.E. stood for Blériot Experimental, and was used for aircraft of tractor configuration (although in the event all the B.E. types were biplanes rather than the monoplanes typical of the Bleriot company). The official agenda of the Balloon Factory was research into aircraft design, but the construction of actual aircraft was not officially sanctioned. O'Gorman got around this contradiction by using the factory's secondary responsibility to repair and maintain aircraft belonging to the Royal Flying Corps; existing aircraft needing major repairs were nominally reconstructed but actually transformed into new designs, generally retaining little except the engine.

Design and pre-war development

The first two B.E. aircraft were flown within a month of each other and had the same basic design, the work of Geoffrey de Havilland, who was at the time both the chief designer and the test pilot at the Balloon Factory. The layout of these aircraft has come to be seen as a conventional design, but when it first appeared this was not the case. Rather, with the contemporary Avro 500, it was one of the designs which established the tractor biplane as the dominant aircraft layout for a considerable time.^[1] On its first public appearance Flight wrote that "everything one could see of the machine was of singular interest".^[2]

Both aircraft were two-bay tractor biplanes with low-dihedral parallel-chord unstaggered wings with rounded ends, using wing warping for roll control. The fuselage was a rectangular section fabric-covered wire-braced structure, within which the pilot occupied the aft cockpit behind the wings and the observer the forward cockpit, this arrangement being adopted so that the aircraft could be flown without a passenger without affecting the aircraft's centre of gravity. Behind the pilot a curved top decking extended aft to the tail. The tail surfaces consisted of a half-oval horizontal stabiliser with a split elevator mounted above the upper longerons and an ovoid rudder hinged to the sternpost. There was no fixed vertical fin. The main undercarriage consisted of a pair of skids each carried on an inverted V-strut at their rear and a single raked strut at the front: an axle carrying the wheels was bound to the skids by bungee cords and restrained by radius rods.^[3] A sprung tailskid was fitted and the wings were protected by semicircular skids beneath the lower wings.

B.E.1

Ostensibly a rebuild of a Voisin powered by a 60 hp (45 kW) water-cooled Wolseley engine, the B.E.1 used only the engine and radiator from this machine, the radiator being mounted between the front pair of cabane struts. The wings were of unequal span: upper wingspan was 36 ft 7½in and lower 34 ft 11½in^[4]

It was first flown by de Havilland on 4 December 1911.^[5] The aircraft was not flown again until 27 December, modified by the substitution of a Claudel carburettor in place of the original Wolseley, which allowed no throttle control. Other minor modifications were made over the following weeks: the undercarriage wheels were moved back 12 in (30.4 cm), the wings (which originally had no dihedral), were re-rigged to have 1° dihedral, and the propeller was cut down in an attempt to increase the engine speed.^[4] Later, the Wolseley was replaced by a 60 hp (45 kW) air-cooled Renault.^[6]

B.E.2

The B.E.2 was not so called because it was considered a separate type. At that time the numbers allocated are more properly regarded as constructor's numbers rather than type designations.^[4] B.E.2 was almost identical to the B.E.1, differing principally in being powered by a 60 hp (45 kW) air-cooled Renault V-8 engine and in having equal-span wings. Like B.E.1 it was nominally a rebuild of an existing aircraft, but it is unclear as to whether this was a Bristol Boxkite or a Breguet. It first flew on 1 February 1912, again with de Havilland as the test pilot.^[7] The Renault proved a much more satisfactory powerplant than the Wolseley fitted to B.E.1, and performance was further improved when a 70 hp (52 kW) model was fitted in May that year.^[6]

B.E.2 was flown extensively at the Military Aeroplane Competition held on Salisbury Plain in August 1912. It was not allowed to formally compete in the trials since O'Gorman was one of the judges, but its performance was clearly superior to most of the aircraft competing: on 12 August 1912 it set a British altitude record of 10,560 ft (3,219 m)., flown by de Havilland with Major F. H. Sykes as passenger.^[8]

Other prototypes of the production B.E.2 series included the B.E.5 and the B.E.6, essentially only differing from the B.E.2 in the powerplant installed. Both these aircraft were eventually fitted with Renault engines, in which form they were really more-or-less standard B.E.2s.

B.E.2a

The designation B.E.2a was given to production aircraft. The B.E.2a designation first appeared on a drawing dated 20 February 1912, this shows an aircraft with unequal span wings with slight dihedral.^[9] These differed from B.E.1 and B.E.2 in having a revised fuel system, in which the streamlined gravity tank below the centre section of the wing was moved to a position behind the engine. The main fuel tank remained under the observer's seat.

Early production aircraft had unequal span wings like those of B.E.1 and no decking between the pilot and observer's seats. Later aircraft added decking between the cockpits. Sandbag loading tests revealed that the safety factor of the rear spar was less than that of the front, and a revised wing design with a deeper rear spar (and consequently a different aerofoil section) and equal-span wings was designed. This was fitted to later production aircraft, and retrofitted to earlier production aircraft.

The first production order was placed with Vickers, and shortly afterwards a second order was placed with the Bristol Aeroplane Company.

The B.E.2b which followed had revised cockpit coamings, affording better protection to the crew. Some B.E.2bs ordered were completed as B.E.2cs, and others had some B.E.2c modifications, such as sump cowlings and "V" undercarriages.

Further development

At the outbreak of war these early B.E.2s formed part of the equipment of the first three squadrons of the RFC to be sent to France. A B.E.2a of No.2 Squadron RFC was the first aircraft of the Royal Flying Corps to arrive in France after the start of the First World War, on 26 August 1914.

B.E.2c

The B.E.2c was a major redesign, the result of research by E.T. Busk intended to provide an inherently stable aeroplane. This was considered desirable to allow the crew's full attention to be devoted to reconnaissance duties. The first example, a converted B.E.2b, flew on 30 May 1914 and the type went into squadron service just before the outbreak of war.^[10] Relatively large orders were placed for the new version, with deliveries of production aircraft starting in December 1914. During 1915 this model replaced the early B.E.2s in the squadrons in France.^[11] The B.E.2c used the same fuselage as the B.E.2b, but was otherwise really a new type, being fitted with new wings of different plan form, increased dihedral, and forward stagger, ailerons replacing the wing warping of the earlier models. The tailplane was also completely new, and a triangular fin was fitted to the rudder.^[10] On later machines this fin was enlarged, to reduce a tendency to swing on takeoff, and to improve spin recovery. After the first few aircraft, production machines were powered by a development of the Renault engine, the RAF 1a, and the twin skid undercarriage was replaced by a plain "V" undercarriage. A streamlined cowling to the sump was also fitted to later models, while a cut-out in the rear of the centre section marginally improved the observer's field of fire, as well as giving the pilot a better view forward over the wing.

The B.E.2d was a dual control version. Otherwise identical to the "c" variant it had full controls in the front cockpit as well as in the rear. This modification meant that there was no longer room for the fuel tank under the observer's seat, which had to be replaced by a centre section gravity tank; in order to give the "d" a superior endurance this tank was unusually large, adding extra weight and drag that reduced the type's performance, particularly in the climb. Most B.E.2ds were used as trainers, and the few used on operations by the RFC seem to have been flown from the normal (rear) pilots' seat. On the other hand, photographs of B.E.2ds supplied to Belgium make it clear that not only were these re-engined with Hispano engines, but at least some of them had the pilot and observer's seating positions reversed, giving the latter a much better field of fire for his gun(s). At least some Belgian B.E.2cs were similarly modified, at least one even being fitted with a Scarff ring over the rear cockpit.

The "c" began to be superseded by the final version, the B.E.2e in 1916. This variant was again distinguished by completely new wings, braced by a single pair of interplane struts per side (as a "single-bay" biplane), and a set of shorter wingspan lower wing panels. The ailerons, on upper and lower wings, were joined by light struts. The tailplane was again a new unit - being smaller than that of the B.E.2c and d - and the larger, quadrant shaped vertical fin of the late B.E.2c became standard. It was intended to fit a new, uprated version of the RAF 1 - the RAF 1b - but in the event this engine did not achieve production status, and the B.E.2e used the same engine as its predecessor, considerably reducing the expected improvement in performance.

Many B.E.2c and B.E.2d aircraft still under construction when the new model entered production were completed with B.E.2e wings. To rationalise the supply of spare parts these aircraft were officially designated as the "B.E.2f" and "B.E.2g".

Some 3,500 B.E.2s were built by over 20 different manufacturers: an exact breakdown between the different models has never been produced, although the B.E.2e was almost certainly the most numerous.

The B.E.9 and the B.E.12 were variants designed to give the B.E.2 an effective forward-firing armament - the B.E.12 (a single seater) went into production and squadron service, but was not a great success.

Operational career

The early models of the B.E. 2 had already served in the RFC for two years prior to the outbreak of war, and were among the aircraft that arrived with the British Expeditionary Force in 1914. Like all service aircraft of this period, they had been designed at a time when the qualities required by a warplane were largely a matter for conjecture, in the absence of any actual experience of the use of aircraft in warfare. Like most other prewar types, they were relegated to second-line duties as quickly as the supply of more modern replacements permitted.

The type that replaced the B.E.2a and B.E.2b (as well as the assortment of other types in use at the time) in the reconnaissance squadrons of the RFC in 1915 was the B.E.2c, which had also been designed before the war. The most important difference in the new model was an improvement in stability – a genuinely useful characteristic, especially in aerial photographic work, using the primitive plate cameras of the time, with their relatively long exposures. A suitable engine was not available in sufficient quantities to replace the air-cooled Renault – the RAF 1a being essentially an uprated version of the French engine – so that the improvement in the B.E.2c's performance was less than startling. When bombs were to be carried or maximum endurance was required the observer had to be left behind,^[12] so it was still necessary to have him sit over the centre of gravity, in front of the pilot. In this awkward position his view was poor, and the degree to which he could handle a camera (or, later, a gun) was hampered by the struts and wires supporting the centre section of the top wing. In practice the pilot of a B.E.2c handled the camera, and the observer, when he was armed at all, had a rather poor field of fire to the rear, having, at best, to shoot back over his pilot's head.

The vulnerability of the B.E.2c to fighter attack became plain in late 1915, with the advent of the Fokker Eindecker. This led the British press to dub it "Fokker Fodder", while German pilots nicknamed it kaltes Fleisch ("cold meat"). British ace Albert Ball summed it up as "a bloody awful aeroplane". Unable to cope with such a primitive fighter as the Fokker E.I, it was virtually helpless against the newer German fighters of 1916-17. The aircraft's poor performance against the Fokker, and the failure to improve the aircraft or replace it caused great controversy in England, with Noel Pemberton Billing attacking the B.E.2c and the Royal Aircraft Factory in the House of Commons on 21 March 1916, saying that RFC pilots in France were being "rather murdered than killed".^[13] This prompted the setting up of two enquiries; one into the management of the Royal Aircraft Factory, and another into the high command of the Royal Flying Corps, the latter headed by a judge. These reports largely cleared both Factory management and the RFC commanders responsible for ordering the B.E.2, but the supervisor of the Factory, Mervyn O'Gorman, was effectively dismissed by a "sideways promotion", and many of the most talented of the factory's designers and engineers followed de Havilland into private industry.^[13][14][15]

Once the threat from the Fokker monoplanes was contained by the introduction of allied fighters such as the Airco D.H.2, Nieuport 11 and Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.2b, B.E.2c losses over the Western Front dropped to an acceptable level, with official records indicating that in the second quarter of 1916 the B.E.2 actually had the lowest loss rates of all the major types then in use.^[16] Encouraged by this, the RFC took delivery of large numbers of the BE.2e, which promised improved performance, and combined the stability of the B.E.2c with rather "lighter" controls (i.e. better manoeuvrability). By the spring of 1917, however, conditions on the Western Front had changed again, with the German fighter squadrons re-equipped with better fighters such as the Albatros D.III. It had been planned that by this time B.E.2s in front-line service would have been replaced by Royal Aircraft Factory R.E.8s and Armstrong Whitworth F.K.8s, but delivery of these types was initially slower than hoped. This situation culminated in what became known as "Bloody April", with the RFC losing 60 B.E.2s during that month.^[17]

An incident illustrating both the poor level of piloting skills with which new RFC pilots were sent to France in 1917 and the level of popularity of the B.E.2e on the Western Front at that time is recorded by Arthur Gould Lee, then a young RFC novice, in his book No Parachute. On 19 May 1917 six pilots, newly arrived in France and still to be allocated to a squadron, were each given a new B.E.2e to ferry between RFC depots at St Omer and Candas. One crashed in transit, three crashed on landing and one went missing (the pilot was killed). Lee, the pilot of the only aircraft to arrive safely, wrote in a letter to his wife:

I felt rather a cad not crashing too because everyone is glad to see death-traps like Quirks written off, especially new ones. ^[18]

Fortunately the B.E.2e was by this time already being rapidly replaced on the Western Front by later types, but this was from several points of view more than a year too late.

Night fighter

As early as 1915, the B.E.2c entered service as a pioneer night fighter,^[19] being used in attempts to intercept and destroy the German airship raiders. The interceptor version of the B.E.2c was flown as a single-seater with an auxiliary fuel tank on the centre of gravity, in the position of the observer's seat. After an initial lack of success while using Ranken darts and small incendiary bombs to attack airships from above, a Lewis gun was mounted to fire a mixture of explosive and incendiary ammunition upwards, at an angle of 45°, to attack the airship from below.^{[note 1]}

The new tactic proved very effective. On the night of 2–3 September 1916, a B.E.2c downed the SL 11, the first German airship to be shot down over Britain after over a year of night raids.^[20] This won the pilot, Captain William Leefe Robinson, a Victoria Cross and cash prizes totalling £3,500 put up by a number of individuals.

This was not an isolated victory; five more German airships were destroyed by Home Defence B.E.2c interceptors between October and December 1916. The airship campaign faltered; this rate of attrition could not be sustained, especially in combination with considerable non-combat losses.

The performance of the B.E.2 was inadequate to intercept the Gotha bombers of 1917, but the techniques it pioneered were used by the later night fighters.

Airship gondola

B.E.2 fuselages were used as gondolas for the hastily designed SS class "blimps", which were introduced into service by the Royal Naval Air Service for anti-submarine duties in March 1915. Later classes had purpose built gondolas.^[21]

Withdrawal from combat

From 1917 onwards the B.E.2 was generally withdrawn from both the front line and night fighter use. The surviving examples continued in use for submarine spotting and as trainers for the rest of the war. In spite of the type's stability it was capable of comprehensive (if somewhat stately) aerobatics, and was by no means a bad trainer.^[22]

On 19 February 1917 a B.E.2c conducted the British Army's first aeromedical evacuation when it flew out the sole casualty of the raid on Bir el Hassana in the Sinai Peninsula. The man had a shattered ankle and the 45-minute flight in the observer's seat spared him an agonizing multi-day journey by camel.^[23]

Post-war use

A BE 2e was used to make the first flight across Australia, flying from Melbourne to Port Darwin piloted by Captain H. N. Wrigley of the Australian Air Force, accompanied by Sergeant A. W. Murphy. The 2,500 mi (4,000 km) journey, made between 16 November and 12 December 1919, took 46 hours flying time.^[24] Another BE 2e was one of the first two aircraft (the other was an Avro 504K) owned by the new Australian airline Qantas upon its founding in Queensland in 1920–1921.^[25]

Survivors and reproductions

Surviving restored aircraft and reproductions are on display at several museums, including the Imperial War Museum, Duxford; the RAF Museum, Hendon; the Canada Aviation Museum, Ottawa; the Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace, Paris; the Militaire Luchtvaartmuseum, Soesterberg, Netherlands; United States Army Aviation Museum and the Norwegian Armed Forces Aircraft Collection at Oslo Airport, Gardermoen, Norway.

B.E.2f serial A1325 has been restored to airworthiness by The Vintage Aviator Ltd in New Zealand,^[26] with a B.E.2f reproduction and two B.E.2e replicas have also been built by the same firm. Both are currently in the UK on loan to the WW1 Aviation Heritage Trust. The B.E.2f restoration uses an original RAF1A V8 engine, and made its debut at the Classic Fighters Omaka airshow in April, 2009.

A flying B.E.2c replica (registered G-AWYI) was built by pilot and engineer Charles Boddington at Sywell, UK in 1969 for use in the film Biggles Sweeps the Skies. The production was cancelled and Boddington was killed the following year in an air crash during filming of the movie Von Richthofen & Brown. The B.E.2c itself was badly damaged in a crash in the United States in 1977 but Boddington's son Matthew returned it to flying condition in 2011.^[27]

The UK's latest non-flying reproduction was built at Boscombe Down, Wilts, completed around 2008 and is now displayed with the Boscombe Down Aviation Collection at Old Sarum.

A B.E.2a (early variant with unequal span wings), scratch-built from the original plans, was completed in February 2014 and is on display at the RAAF Museum, Point Cook, Victoria, Australia.

Volunteers at Montrose Air Station Heritage Centre, Angus, Scotland have built a full size replica B.E.2a (No.471) from original plans and it is now on display.It has a precision made replica Renault_70_hp engine. ^[28]

Variants

• B.E.1: Prototype - important pioneer tractor biplane. The first B.E.2 was virtually identical, except for the engine originally installed.
  • B.E.5: Prototype, officially a rebuild of a Howard Wright biplane, powered by 60 hp (45 kW) ENV engine, otherwise similar to original B.E.2. First flight 27 June 1912. Rebuilt with Renault engine and effectively became a B.E.2.^[29]
  • B.E.6: Prototype, officially a rebuild of the Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.1. First flown 5 September 1912, powered by a 60 hp (45 kW) ENV engine like the B.E.5, but refitted with Renault before delivery to RFC later that month, as a B.E.2.^[30]
• B.E.2a: Initial production version of B.E.2. Built in small numbers from late 1912 - still a standard type at the outbreak of war in late 1914
• B.E.2b: basically the same as the "a" with higher sides to the cockpits; late examples (perhaps those completed after the B.E.2c went into production) used ailerons instead of wing warping and featured other "c" characteristics such as "V" undercarriages and engine sump cowlings.
• B.E.2c: extensively redesigned - really a new aeroplane.
• B.E.2d: essentially a "c" variant with dual controls, and a larger gravity fuel tank

• B.E.2e: the final version, with new single-bay wings. Expected to be a great improvement on the "c", it was a major disappointment. Nicknamed the "Quirk".
• B.E.2f: B.E.2c with B.E.2e wings.
• B.E.2g: B.E.2d with B.E.2e wings.
• B.E.9: B.E.2c with a wooden box (called a "pulpit", somewhat like the French SPAD S.A) in front of the propeller for an observer/gunner's seat. It remained a prototype only.
• B.E.12: single-seat B.E.2c with a synchronised gun and more powerful engine. The B.E.12a had B.E.2e wings.

Operators

 Australia

• Australian Flying Corps
  • No. 1 Squadron AFC, in Egypt and Palestine.
  • No. 4 Squadron AFC, training.
  • No. 7 (Training) Squadron AFC, in the United Kingdom.
  • Mesopotamian Half Flight
  • Central Flying School AFC, at Point Cook, Victoria.

 Belgium

• Belgium Air Force

 Estonia

• Estonian Air Force^[31]

 Greece

• Hellenic Navy

 Netherlands

• One aircraft only.

 Norway

• Norwegian Army Air Service

 South Africa

• Union Defence Force / South African Air Force

Serial numbers A3109 and A3110 build by Wolseley Motors Limited and nicknamed Rio de Janeiro Britons Nos. 1 & 2 were two of the first aircraft used by the South African Air Force

 United Kingdom

• Royal Flying Corps / Royal Air Force

• Royal Naval Air Service
  • No. 1 Wing (Dunkirk)
  • No. 2 Wing (Imbros and Mudros)
  • No. 3 Wing (Imbros and Tenedos)
  • No. 7 (Naval) Squadron (East Africa)
  • Coastal Air Stations at Eastbourne, Hornsea, Great Yarmouth, Port Victoria, Redcar and Scarborough
  • Training schools at Chingford and Cranwell

 United States

• American Expeditionary Force

Specifications (B.E.2c - RAF 1a engine)

Data from British Aeroplanes 1914–18^[32]

General characteristics

• Crew: Two, pilot and observer
• Length: 27 ft 3 in (8.31 m)
• Wingspan: 37 ft 0 in (11.28 m)
• Height: 11 ft 1½ in (3.39 m)
• Wing area: 371 ft² (34.8 m²)
• Empty weight: 1,370 lb (623 kg)
• Loaded weight: 2,350 lb (1,068 kg)
• Powerplant: 1 × RAF 1a air cooled V-8 engine, 90 hp (67 kW)

Performance

• Maximum speed: 72 mph (63 knots, 116 km/h) at 6,500 ft (1,980 m)
• Endurance: 3 hr 15 min
• Service ceiling: 10,000 ft (3,050 m)
  
• Climb to 3,500 ft (1,070 m): 6 min 30 s
• Climb to 10,000 ft (3,050 m): 45 min 15 s

Armament

• Guns: Normally 1 × .303 in (7.7 mm) Lewis gun for observer
• Bombs: 224 lb (100 kg) of bombs

(With full bomb load usually flown as a single-seater, without machine gun)

See also

Related development

• B.E.9
• B.E.12

Aircraft of comparable role, configuration and era

• Aviatik B.I
• Albatros B.I
• LVG B.I

Related lists

• List of aircraft of the RAF
• List of aircraft of the Royal Flying Corps

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

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