AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 07 / 91

Plate 07 of 91 · Great War · Monoplane scout

Bristol M.1C

M.1C, painted as C4918 (G-BWJM), The Shuttleworth Collection’s flying reproduction of the Bristol M.1C monoplane scout with a 110 hp Le Rhône 9J rotary, painted as it flies from Old Warden: red-brown doped fabric on the fuselage and fin, brown upper surfaces on the wing and tailplane, clear-doped linen undersides, a blue-grey spinner, cowling and forward metal panels, roundels on the fuselage sides and above and below the wing with five white zigzag bands aft of each fuselage roundel, a blue, white and red striped rudder, black ‘C 4918’ on the fin, clear cut-outs in the wing roots and a single synchronised Vickers gun on the centreline.

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as C4918 (G-BWJM), The Shuttleworth Collection’s flying reproduction of the Bristol M.1C monoplane scout with a 110 hp Le Rhône 9J rotary, painted as it flies from Old Warden: red-brown doped fabric on the fuselage and fin, brown upper surfaces on the wing and tailplane, clear-doped linen undersides, a blue-grey spinner, cowling and forward metal panels, roundels on the fuselage sides and above and below the wing with five white zigzag bands aft of each fuselage roundel, a blue, white and red striped rudder, black ‘C 4918’ on the fin, clear cut-outs in the wing roots and a single synchronised Vickers gun on the centreline. Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.2 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (); engine, crew and dimensions are for the M.1C modelled here.

History

The M.1C

Frank Barnwell designed the M.1 at Filton in 1916 as a private venture: a clean, wire-braced shoulder-wing monoplane with a round fuselage, a large spinner and a rotary engine, and clear panels in the wing roots so the pilot could see downwards. Fred Raynham first flew the prototype, the Clerget-powered M.1A, on 14 July 1916. It was much faster than the biplane scouts of the day, and the War Office ordered four M.1Bs for evaluation, which confirmed a top speed of about 130 mph.

The Royal Flying Corps was wary of monoplanes, which it had banned for a time in 1912 after a run of structural failures, and it judged the M.1’s landing speed too high for the small airfields of the Western Front. Instead of the large order its performance deserved, 125 production M.1Cs were ordered in 1917 with the 110 hp Le Rhône 9J and a single Vickers gun firing through the propeller on the centreline. Most went to the Middle East and the Balkans, where landing grounds were bigger and the opposition thinner: to Nos. 72 and 111 Squadrons in Mesopotamia and Palestine, and to No. 47 Squadron and then No. 150 Squadron on the Macedonian front, where they flew alongside S.E.5as in 1918.

The rest served at home as fast trainers and personal mounts for senior officers, and the type was quickly retired after the Armistice. Six went to Chile in 1917, and on 12 December 1918 Lieutenant Dagoberto Godoy of the Chilean Army flew one from Santiago to Mendoza in Argentina, the first crossing of the Andes by aeroplane. No original survives in Britain. Two reproductions are in gazetteer museums: the RAF Museum’s C4994 at Cosford and the Shuttleworth Collection’s airworthy C4918, built by the Northern Aeroplane Workshops.

This airframe

M.1C ‘C4918’ (G-BWJM)

C4918The airframe modelled

C4918 is a reproduction built by members of the Northern Aeroplane Workshops at Mirfield, Yorkshire, the volunteer group that also built Shuttleworth’s Sopwith Triplane and Camel. It was delivered to the Shuttleworth Collection in October 1997, registered G-BWJM, and after detail finishing and engine runs it first flew at Old Warden on 25 September 2000. It is powered by an original 110 hp Le Rhône 9J rotary and carries the serial of an M.1C from the production batch of 1917–18. The model shows it as photographed at Old Warden: red-brown doped fabric on the fuselage and fin, brown upper surfaces on the wing and tailplane, clear-doped linen undersides, a blue-grey spinner, cowling and forward metal panels, roundels on the fuselage sides and above and below the wing, five white zigzag bands aft of each fuselage roundel, a blue, white and red striped rudder, black “C 4918” on the fin, clear cut-outs in the wing roots and a single Vickers gun on the centreline.

See it at The Shuttleworth Collection

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the M.1C in 2 UK collections. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 91 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.