I.D. of SE5a

At a local Air&Space museum, there is a piece of fabric from the tail of a Brit SE5a. The plaque next to it described it to be from an SE5a, manufactured by Vickers in 1918. However, the history of pilot and squadron is unknown.
The tail # is F713. Does anyone have any info, or suggestions on where I can start looking?

The serial # F715 doesn't match any SE5a's in my records. The F series numbers for Vickers are as follows:
Vickers , Ltd., Crayford : F551-F615
Vickers, Ltd., Weybridge : F5449-F5698;F8946-F9145
Other manufacturers of the SE5a:
Austin Motor Co : F7951-F8200
Royal Aircraft Factory : none
Bleriot & Spad,Ltd / Air Navigation Co.,Ltd, Addlestone, Surrey : none
Martinsyde,Ltd., Brooklands, Surrey: F5249-F5348
(F8321-F8420, Cancelled)
Wolseley Motors, Ltd Adderly Park, Birmingham: F851-F950; F7751-F7800

So I don't know what the serial # comes from but probably not a SE5a or SE5

I may stand corrected as I believe my records only show SE5a's not serial #'s of SE5's. So possibley it may have come from a early example of the SE5.

[Frank_Olynyk]

Aircraft serial F715 falls in a block F701 to F850 of 150 Vickers F.B.27 Vimy's. Only 12 were completed by Vickers at Crayford. It may be genuine, but is not from an SE 5a. This information is from British Military Aircraft Serials 1912-1963, by Bruce Robertson.

Dwight: All SE 5 serials are in the Axxxx range; SE 5a serials start at B1. Most of the SE 5's seem to have gone to 56 Squadron, starting in April 1917; some of them were still in use in November.

Frank.

[Ira_Silverman]

Hi Melissa:

I concur with what has already been offered.

Sturtivant and Page's "The S.E.5 File" (Air Britain, 1996) has no listing for F713. F551-F615 were Vickers-built S.E.5a's, then the numbers jump to F851-F950 for Wolseley-built S.E.5a's.

I checked F913 for the heck of it, but the book simply says "No information."

It appears that there is an error in the identification of the sample.

VBR,

Ira

Frank

2AFC had an SE5 (A4856) from 27Oct17 until 8Dec17. It was used by the squadron as a practice aircraft prior to trading in their DH5s for SE5as. The aircraft was passed on to 24RFC.

Where is this 'local' Museum, if you will? I'm trying to double-check cataloguing of all with WW1 stuff.

[Darryl]

Hi All,

At various times aircraft have been painted with "made up" serials, particularly when 'restored' to 'original' markings. One of Jack Savage's skywriting SE5a's spent time as G-EBIA on the civil register THEN D7000 and F703, (it was really F904) so it may be that the aircraft in question WAS an SE5a but was aquired by thew museum after a 'restoration' and subsequent crash? Does anybody know the fates of the various other "Skywriting Corporation of America" SE's??

regards

Darryl

The museum I speak of is the Air & Space Museum located in Kirkpatrick Center, Oklahoma City OK.