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Our early single-seater tractors were fitted with a Lewis gun fixed so as to fire over or at the side of the airscrew and actuated by a bowden wire, the most efficient, though not the most numerous, fighting machines at the end of 1915 being the Bristol Scouts.
In 1913 I recommended the gradual substitution of B.E.'s for Farmans on the ground of the all-round efficiency and superior fighting qualities of the former, and to secure the advantage of standardization, but it was objected by the War Office that the Farmans were the only machines that could mount weapons in front an objection which was not met until firing through the airscrew was introduced and that the slower Farmans offered greater advantages for observation, an idea which was long prevalent.
The necessity of preventing the enemy obtaining information soon led to the development of air fighting. At the beginning of the war the sole armament of aeroplanes was the rifle or revolver. The machine gun soon followed, but its use in tractor machines was impracticable on account of the danger of hitting the airscrew.
These "pusher" fighters had an excellent field of view and fire forwards, but suffered from lack of speed and a large "blind" area to the rear. On the other hand, the single-seater tractors were potentially the superior fighters, and in order to protect the blades of the airscrew the French were the first to use deflector blades on them in tractor machines.
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