Today we’re beginning a new series of mini-aircraft overviews, where I hope to cover lesser known
and highly obscure types in a slightly shorter format, aiming for the five-to-ten-minute
mark.
And for no specific reason, other than my own general interest in them, I thought we’d
start off with some of the lesser-known designs that came from interwar Spain.
The Bristol F2B had arrived in Spanish service in 1922, and it had served well, operating
in the country’s African holdings where it took part in some not-so-pleasant attempts
to pacify the local population, sometimes using poison gas.
These tactics aside, the aircraft itself performed its duties well, and as Spain was currently
going through something of a rearmament program, it was decided in 1923 to see if the F2B could
be further modified and improved.
This was done by Captain Manuel Bada Vasallo and Arturo Gonzalez Gil (apologies if I did
not pronounce either of those correctly).
These two men kicked off a project to develop the F2B into an advanced armed reconnaissance
aircraft.
Construction of two prototypes was begun at the workshop of the Aeronautica Militar, in
Madrid, and this is where the aircraft would get its names from: being known as the Aeronautica
Militar Espanola VI.
It was a two-bay biplane, with staggered wings, built primarily from wood and covered with
doped fabric, the exception being the streamlined metal cowl that covered the engine.
This engine was a 300hp, 18.5 litre, Hispano-Suiza V8 which drove a two-blade wooden propeller.
The radiators, which were a pair of Lamblin “lobster pot” style units, were mounted
on the undercarriage rather than being built within the nose.
In terms of design, the wings of the F2B were retained, but parts of the fuselage were modified,
and the tail of the aircraft was completely redesigned.
It had a wingspan of 39 ft 1 in (11.9 m), a length of 25 ft 7 in (7.8m), and a height
of 11 ft 10 in (3.6m).
Gross weight was approximately 2,700 lbs (870 kg, depending on equipment) and it had a top
speed of 120 mph (190 kmh).
The crew consisted of two, a pilot and an observer in tandem cockpits, with the observer
operating the sole machine gun, which was a 7.7mm – though it is unclear if this was
the original British weapon of the F2B, or if it was a different gun altogether.
Though ostensibly designed for reconnaissance duties, the AME VI could also carry a small
number of bombs, specifically six 12kg bombs.
From what I could find, it appears that these would have been manually dropped, one very
old, very grainy photo seems to hint at the presence of racks under the fuselage, but
I’m inclined to think this wasn’t the case, and there’s no documentation to confirm
anything.
After test flights of the prototypes in 1924, a small production order for 20 aircraft was
placed, with delivery beginning at the start of 1925.
These entered service with Grupo IV at Melilla, North Morocco, alongside existing units of
Bristol F2Bs.
Unfortunately, the attempts at improving the venerable Bristol turned out to be a bit of
a mistake as they actually performed worse than the aircraft they had intended to replace,
this was partly the result of a very hasty assessment process, and had further testing
been conducted this little fact may have been picked up sooner.
Despite the disappointment, the AME VI’s remained in frontline service until 1927,
when they were transferred back to Spain to serve in aerial training units.
Here they remained until late 1931, when they were completely phased out of military use,
as the Spanish Armed Forces were going through a major reshuffle and modernisation program,
both to keep their forces competitive, and to cut costs due to the financial strain brought
on by the Great Depression.
No further information on the AME VI is available after this point, so its assumed they were
scrapped at some point in early to mid 1932.