Port Victoria P.V.7 Grain Kitten
The Port Victoria P.V.7 Grain Kitten was a biplane fighter intended to fly off platforms on Royal Navy Destroyers. Designed to be powered by a 45 hp (34 kW) geared ABC Gnat two-cylinder air-cooled engine, it was a very small aircraft with a wing span of 5.49m, a length of4.55m and a height of 1.60m. Armament was a single Lewis gun mounted above the upper wing. The geared Gnat engine was not available, so the P.V.7 flew on an ungeared version. This proved very unreliable, with test flights being restricted to within gliding distance of the airfield.
Test flights showed the aircraft to be tail heavy and its high lift wings unsuitable to such a small aircraft. Although re-built with equal span upper and lower wings, it did not fly in this configuration.
The low power and unreliability of its engine resulted in no production orders being received.
Port Victoria Marine Experimental Aircraft Depot
The British Royal Naval Air Service established an R.N. Aeroplane Repair Depot on the Isle of Grain on the River Medway Estuary in Kent in early 1915. As there was already a RNAS seaplane base on the Isle of Grain, the Depot was named Port Victoria, after the nearby railway station. It became the Marine Aircraft Experimental Depot.
It was renamed Marine and Armament Experimental Establishment on 16 March 1920 in recognition of the fact that weapons and other equipment were evaluated as well as complete aircraft. It was renamed again on 1 March 1924 to the Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment and eventually moved to Felixstowe.
