AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 20 / 146

Plate 20 of 146 · Great War · Shipboard fighter prototype

Port Victoria Eastchurch Kitten

Port Victoria P.V.8 Eastchurch Kitten, painted as ‘N540’, the Port Victoria P.V.8 Eastchurch Kitten reconstruction at the Yorkshire Air Museum, Elvington: the tiny single-seat anti-Zeppelin scout of 1917 designed at the RNAS Experimental Construction Depot, Port Victoria, to fly from platforms on small warships, a back-staggered biplane of under 19 ft span with equal-span wings on a single raked I-strut each side, the lower wing hung beneath a wide flat-sided fuselage, a 35 hp ABC Gnat flat-twin in an aluminium nose with its cylinders exposed and a Lewis gun above the upper-wing centre section; shown as the taxiable reconstruction built by volunteers at Elvington: dark brown fuselage, fin and tailplane, bare aluminium nose and forward decking, brown-doped wing upper surfaces over clear-doped linen undersides, varnished wooden struts, a roundel on each side of the fuselage, a white ‘N540’ behind it and blue, white and red rudder stripes.

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as ‘N540’, the Port Victoria P.V.8 Eastchurch Kitten reconstruction at the Yorkshire Air Museum, Elvington: the tiny single-seat anti-Zeppelin scout of 1917 designed at the RNAS Experimental Construction Depot, Port Victoria, to fly from platforms on small warships, a back-staggered biplane of under 19 ft span with equal-span wings on a single raked I-strut each side, the lower wing hung beneath a wide flat-sided fuselage, a 35 hp ABC Gnat flat-twin in an aluminium nose with its cylinders exposed and a Lewis gun above the upper-wing centre section; shown as the taxiable reconstruction built by volunteers at Elvington: dark brown fuselage, fin and tailplane, bare aluminium nose and forward decking, brown-doped wing upper surfaces over clear-doped linen undersides, varnished wooden struts, a roundel on each side of the fuselage, a white ‘N540’ behind it and blue, white and red rudder stripes. Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (801 KB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (replica); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Port Victoria P.V.8 Eastchurch Kitten modelled here.

History

The Eastchurch Kitten

In 1916 the Admiralty asked for the smallest possible single-seat fighter that could take off from a short platform on the forecastle of a destroyer or other small warship and climb to attack the Zeppelins raiding Britain. The pilot was not expected to land back on board: having fired his single Lewis gun, he would come down in the sea beside his ship. Two designs were ordered from the Royal Naval Air Service’s own experimental stations, and both were built around the 45 hp ABC Gnat, a small two-cylinder air-cooled flat-twin.

The Eastchurch Kitten was drawn by G. H. Millar, the technical officer of the RNAS flight at Eastchurch on the Isle of Sheppey, and when its designer moved to the Marine Experimental Aircraft Depot at Port Victoria on the Isle of Grain the half-built aircraft went with him, becoming the P.V.8. It was a tiny, angular single-bay biplane of under 19 ft span, its equal-span wings joined by one wooden I-strut each side and the lower wing hung beneath a deep, flat-sided fuselage, with the Lewis gun above the upper-wing centre section. The intended 45 hp Gnat was not available, so it flew in September 1917 with a 35 hp version. It was unstable at first with only a balanced elevator, and a small fixed tailplane was added.

Thus modified, the Eastchurch Kitten flew better than its rival from Port Victoria, the P.V.7 Grain Kitten, reaching almost 95 mph, and the test pilots praised its handling and the view from the cockpit; but the Gnat was unreliable and the airframe was judged too fragile for service at sea. By then the Navy had found that Sopwith Pups and Camels could fly from platforms on its ships, and no orders followed. In March 1918 the Kitten was packed for shipment to the United States for evaluation; whether it ever crossed the Atlantic is not known.

This airframe

Port Victoria P.V.8 Eastchurch Kitten “N540”

N540The airframe modelled

The Yorkshire Air Museum’s Kitten is a reconstruction. A basic fuselage begun by enthusiasts in the 1980s lay in store at Elvington for many years until the museum’s engineers Ray McElwain and Brian Watmough, helped by two French aeronautical students on placement, completed it in 2012–14. It was covered in Irish linen and is powered by a similar small twin-cylinder air-cooled engine in place of the Gnat. It cannot fly but taxies under its own power, made its first public appearance in Leeds city centre in May 2014 at the start of the First World War centenary, and in 2015 was reassembled inside the Royal Aeronautical Society’s London headquarters. The model shows it as displayed, in the original aircraft’s serial: dark brown fuselage, fin and tailplane, a bare aluminium nose and forward decking with the engine’s cylinders showing through the side, brown upper wing surfaces over clear-doped linen undersides, varnished wooden struts, a roundel on each side of the fuselage, a white ‘N540’ behind it and blue, white and red rudder stripes. No photograph shows the top of the upper wing or the underside of the lower wing clearly, so no wing roundels are painted.

See it at Yorkshire Air Museum

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Eastchurch Kitten in one UK collection. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 146 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.