- Yes
- No
- Maybe?
In 1930 the Belgian Aéronautique Militaire wanted to find a replacement for the obsolete Bréguet 19 in the observation/bomber role to no avail.
However, some time later the Belgian engineer and co-founder of Fairey Aviation Company Ernest Oscar Tips presented the Fairey Fox IIM prototype to Belgian authorities at Evere. The presentation convinced the Belgians to order 12 Fox IIMs, however with the more powerful Kestrel IIS engine, where it was now designated as the Fairey Fox II in Belgium.
Fairey Fox? Isn’t that British?
While the Fairey company is British (even though it was co-founded by a Belgian engineer as stated earlier), the Fairey Fox is more Belgian than you would think!
First of all, Belgium was one of the biggest user and producer of the Fox (probably the biggest, but i don’t have the numbers to prove it), the Fox’s designer, Marcel Lobelle, was Belgian and most of the Fox variants were built in Belgium, by Belgium and for Belgium. Fairey even had a subsidiary in Belgium, Avions Fairey
All of this leads me to suggest the Fox as a Belgian plane, but only the variants built and used by Belgium!
The Fairey Fox II:
Fairey Fox II
The Fox II is the Belgian production variant of the Fox IIM, it has a Kestrel IIS engine instead of the Kestrel IB, giving it a nice boost in performance over the original British version.
It was originally supposed to have a 400 kg bomb load, but since the requirement at the time was solely a reconnaissance and observation aircraft, armament was limited to a single 7.62 mm Vickers machine gun on the left side of the fuselage and a Lewis machine gun at the back - both of them were later standardised to the better FN-Browning machine guns
Two of the Fox IIs were produced as the dual-control Fox IIS variant
Specifications
Engine: Rolls-Royce Kestrel IIS (480 hp)
Wingspan: 11.58 m
Length: 9.09 m
Height: 3.51 m
Wing area: 33.6 m²
Loaded weight: 2116 kg
Wing loading: 63 kg/m² - Est. Turn time: 13 s
Max speed: 304 km/h at 5000 m
Armament: 1 × 7.62 mm Vickers machine gun (ammo: 250) and 1 × 7.62 Lewis machine gun in the rear (all later standardised to FN-Browning)
Service ceiling: 8800 m
In game, this would be pretty weak with only a single offensive machine gun, but i’ll still go ahead and suggest it because suggesting the other variants and not this one wouldn’t feel right to me!
Even with a single machine gun, it can still be playable in Rank I after unlocking a possible FN-Browning modification, granting it one of the best rifle-caliber machine guns in the game with a high RoF of 1600 RPM, compared to the famous ShKAS’ 1800 RPM. If not for Rank I, it can still be kept for an eventual Rank 0 in either the British or French tech tree, or a future BeNeLux tree.
Sources
https://www.belgian-wings.be/fairey-fox-homepage
“Fighters” by William Green
“1939-1940 / La bataille de France, Volume VII: L’Aéronautique militaire Belge”, Icare