Beardmore W.B.II

A two-seat fighter built as a private venture and based on the design of the B.E.2c by G Tilghman-Richards of William Beardmore & Co, the W.B.II was powered by a 200hp Hispano-Suiza 8Bd eight-cylinder water-cooled engine. It carried an armament of two fixed synchronised 7.7mm Vickers guns and a single 7.7mm Lewis gun on a swivelling Beardmore- Richards mounting. The W.B.II was first flown on 30 August 1917, and performance proved good, but the Hispano-Suiza engine was in short supply and was required for the S.E.5a single-seater. No production of the W.B.II was therefore undertaken, although two civil examples were built in 1920 as the W.B.IIB.