Wight Converted Seaplane

The Wight Converted Seaplane was a British twin-float patrol seaplane produced by John Samuel White & Company Limited (Wight Aircraft).

The aircraft was a three-bay biplane with unswept, unequal span, unstaggered wings.

Initial production aircraft were powered by a 322 hp Rolls-Royce Eagle IV engine mounted in the nose driving a four-bladed propeller, with later production batches being powered by a 265 hp (198 kW) Sunbeam Maori engine owing to shortages of Eagles.

[2] The Converted Seaplane entered service with the RNAS in 1917,[1] operating from bases at Calshot, Dover, Portland and Cherbourg.

[2] On 18 August 1917, a Wight Converted Seaplane flying from Cherbourg sank the German U-boat UB-32 with a single 100 lb bomb, the first submarine to be sunk in the English Channel by direct air action.