The Strutter was the first British aeroplane of WW1 to have a synchronised forward-firing Vickers gun, and it went into front-line service in February 1916. It did well at first, but it was too stable to make a good dogfighter in the long run, and it was one of the types that suffered very badly in Bloody April.
Its long range and stability made it an ideal candidate for a Home Defence fighter, in which role it was usually configured as a two-seater, though single-seaters were not uncommon.
The Strutter seems to have suffered from an inconvenient virtue.
ReplyDeleteIts stability made it useful for long-range work and home defence, but less useful when somebody was trying to shoot it down.
Aviation had discovered one of its recurring problems very early:
the qualities that make a machine pleasant are not always the ones that keep it alive.