The F.E.1 was designed and built in 1910 by the pioneer designer Geoffrey de Havilland

Geoffrey de Havilland

Captain Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, OM, CBE, AFC, RDI, FRAeS, was a British aviation pioneer and aircraft engineer...

. He used it to teach himself to fly during late 1910. After De Havilland was appointed assistant designer and test pilot at Army Balloon Factory at Farnborough

Farnborough, Hampshire

-History:Name changes: Ferneberga ; Farnburghe, Farenberg ; Farnborowe, Fremborough, Fameborough .Tower Hill, Cove: There is substantial evidence...

 (later the Royal Aircraft Factory

Royal Aircraft Establishment

The Royal Aircraft Establishment , was a British research establishment, known by several different names during its history, that eventually came under the aegis of the UK Ministry of Defence , before finally losing its identity in mergers with other institutions.The first site was at Farnborough...

) in December 1910 the War Office

War Office

The War Office was a department of the British Government, responsible for the administration of the British Army between the 17th century and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the Ministry of Defence...

 bought the aircraft for £400. the aircraft was given the designation F.E.1 (Farman Experimental)

Design and development

After the failure of his first aircraft design Geoffrey de Havilland began construction of second aircraft, using the engine that he had designed for the earlier machine.
Like the Bristol Boxkite

Bristol Boxkite

-Military operators:* Australian Flying Corps** Central Flying School AFC at Point Cook, Victoria.* Union Defence Forces - South African Air Force Kingdom of Spain* Royal Flying Corps* Royal Naval Air Service** No. 3 Squadron RFC-References:...

 and several other contemporary British designs, this closely followed the general lines of the Farman III

Farman III

|-See also:-Bibliography:*Opdycke, Leonard E French Aeroplanes Before the Great War Atglen, PA: Schiffer 1999 ISBN 0 7643 0752 5-External links:**...

, being a two-bay pusher

Pusher configuration

In a craft with a pusher configuration the propeller are mounted behind their respective engine. According to Bill Gunston, a "pusher propeller" is one mounted behind engine so that drive shaft is in compression...

 biplane with an elevator

Elevator (aircraft)

Elevators are flight control surfaces, usually at the rear of an aircraft, which control the aircraft's orientation by changing the pitch of the aircraft, and so also the angle of attack of the wing. In simplified terms, they make the aircraft nose-up or nose-down...

 carried on booms in front of the wing, the pilot

Aviator

An aviator is a person who flies an aircraft. The first recorded use of the term was in 1887, as a variation of 'aviation', from the Latin avis , coined in 1863 by G. de la Landelle in Aviation Ou Navigation Aérienne...

 seated on the lower wing directly in front of the engine, and a second elevator and a rudder behind the wings. Lateral control was effected by a pair of aileron

Aileron

Ailerons are hinged flight control surfaces attached to the trailing edge of the wing of a fixed-wing aircraft. The ailerons are used to control the aircraft in roll, which results in a change in heading due to the tilting of the lift vector...

s mounted on the upper wing. De Havilland and several other pilots flew it at Farnborough until it crashed in the summer of 1911 while piloted by Lt. Theodore J. Ridge, who was later killed attempting to fly the S.E.1

Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.1

The S.E.1 was an experimental aircraft built at the Army Balloon Factory at Farnborough in 1911...

.

"Rebuild" as the F.E.2

The crashed F.E.1 was "rebuilt" in August 1911 as the F.E.2. In fact it was a "rebuild" in name only, as it was a completely new design, incorporating few if any actual components of the original (at this stage Farnborough were still not authorised to build aircraft from scratch). The Iris engine, seriously damaged in the F.E.1 crash, was replaced by a 50 hp. Gnome

Gnome et Rhône

Gnome et Rhône was a major French aircraft engine manufacturer. Between 1914 and 1918 they produced 25,000 of their 9-cylinder Delta and Le Rhône 110 hp rotary designs, while another 75,000 were produced by various licensees, powering the majority of aircraft in the first half of the war on...

 rotary engine

Rotary engine

The rotary engine was an early type of internal-combustion engine, usually designed with an odd number of cylinders per row in a radial configuration, in which the crankshaft remained stationary and the entire cylinder block rotated around it...

, a two seater nacelle

Nacelle

The nacelle is a cover housing that holds engines, fuel, or equipment on an aircraft. In some cases—for instance in the typical "Farman" type "pusher" aircraft, or the World War II-era P-38 Lightning—an aircraft's cockpit may also be housed in a nacelle, which essentially fills the...

 was fitted, and the fore-elevator was replaced with one incorporated into a sesquiplane tail

Empennage

The empennage , also known as the tail or tail assembly, of most aircraft gives stability to the aircraft, in a similar way to the feathers on an arrow...

 in the conventional manner. In this form many tests were carried out, including the fitting of a machine gun, and seaplane trials, fitted with a single central float. At this point the F.E.2 was powered by a 70 hp (52 kW) Gnome.

In 1913 the F.E.2 design was once more heavily reworked with a new and streamlined nacelle, upper wing panels which extended the span to 42 ft (12.08 m) and a revised tail with a smaller rudder and tailplane lifted to the top longeron

Longeron

In aircraft construction, a longeron or stringer or stiffener is a thin strip of wood, metal or carbon fiber, to which the skin of the aircraft is fastened. In the fuselage, longerons are attached to formers and run the longitudinal direction of the aircraft...

s. The Gnome was replaced by a 70 hp (52 kW) air cooled Renault

Renault 70 hp

|-See also:-Bibliography:* Gunston, Bill. World Encyclopaedia of Aero Engines. Cambridge, England. Patrick Stephens Limited, 1989. ISBN 1-85260-163-9...

 V-8 engine. Effectively, although the factory now routinely constructed original aircraft, it was another case of a new design reusing the designation of an older one. It was lost in a crash in February 1914 when the pilot, R. Kemp lost control while in a dive, killing his passenger.

The F.E.2a/b/d types produced in numbers in World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 followed the same general layout, but were considerably larger, and again of a totally new design. This double re-use of the F.E.2 designation has caused considerable confusion among aviation historians.

Specifications (F.E.1 in its original form)