2 photos from Wikimedia Commons · credits & licences
- 1. Fairey Firefly Aero Digest December,1930: Aero Digest magazine· Attribution
- 2. Fairey Firefly II L'Air August 1,1929: L'Air magazine· Public domain
what is it?
The Fairey Firefly IIM was a British fighter of the 1930s. It was a single-seat, single-engine biplane of all-metal construction.
How to recognise it: 1 piston engine with propeller · 9.6 m wingspan
base stats
Bars compare against all aircraft: 3,500 km/h, 20,000 km, 850 seats; size and number built on a log scale up to 640 t (An-225) and 45,000 built (Cessna 172).
fun facts
- First flew 97 years ago, in 1929.
- Top speed is 2.2× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).
- Wingspan of 9.6 m: about 2 cars parked nose to tail.
- Can fly 1.1× higher than Mount Everest (8,849 m).
piston: A car-like piston engine turning a propeller: simple and cheap, the classic small plane.
spec sheet
- first flight
- 1929-02-05
- introduced
- 1931
- number built
- 91
- role
- fighter
- origin
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
- makers
- Fairey Aviation Company
- engines
- 1× Rolls-Royce F.XIS
- crew
- 1
- length
- 7.5 m
- wingspan
- 9.6 m
- height
- 2.8 m
- max take-off weight
- 1,544 kg
- top speed
- 282 km/h
- range
- —
- ceiling
- 9,400 m
Specs are for the version in the Wikipedia article's specification section. Blank means the sources don't say.
Sources: Wikidata Q791096, Wikipedia: Fairey Firefly IIM (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-24.