Avro 504

The Avro 504 was a First World War biplane aircraft made by the Avro aircraft company and under licence by others. Production during the war totalled 8,970 and continued for almost 20 years, making it the most-produced aircraft of any kind that served in any military capacity during the First World War. More than 10,000 were built from 1913 until production ended in 1932. First flown from Brooklands by Fred "Freddie" Raynham on 18 September 1913, powered by an Gnome Lambda seven-cylinder rotary engine, the Avro 504 was a development of the earlier Avro 500, designed for training and private flying. It was a two-bay all-wooden biplane with a square-section fuselage. The following companies are recorded as manufacturing the Avro 504 under licence. A. V. Roe and Co Ltd., Park Works, Newton Heath, Manchester; and at Hamble Aerodrome, near Southampton, Hants Australian Aircraft and Engineering, Sydney, NSW, Australia Bleriot and SPAD Aircraft Works, Addlestone The Brush Electrical Engineering Co Ltd, Loughborough Canadian Aeroplanes Ltd, Toronto, Ontario, Canada The Eastbourne Aviation Co Ltd, Eastbourne Aero Historic, Parana, Argentina Fabrica Militar de Aviones, Cordoba, Argentina Frederick Sage and Co Ltd, Peterborough and London The Grahame-White Aviation Co Ltd, Hendon Aerodrome, London Harland and Wolff Ltd, Belfast The Henderson Scottish Aviation Factory, Aberdeen Hewlett and Blondeau Ltd, Luton Humber Limited, Coventry Morgan and Co, Leighton Buzzard Nakajima Hikoki Seisaku Sho, Ohta-Machi, Tokyo, Japan Parnall & Sons, Bristol Regent Carriage, Fulham S. E. Saunders Ltd, East Cowes, Isle of Wight Savages Ltd, King's Lynn, Societe Anonyme Belge de Constructions Aeronautiques Haren, Brussels, Belgium The Sunbeam Motor Car Co Ltd, Wolverhampton TNCA, Balbuena field in Mexico City Yokosuka Naval Arsenal, Japan Small numbers of early aircraft were purchased by the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) prior to the start of the First World War, and were taken to France when the war started.