The Henry Farman HF.30 was a two-seat military biplane designed in France around 1915, which became a principal aircraft of the Imperial Russian Air Service during the First World War. Although it was widely used on the Eastern Front, and by the factions and governments that emerged in the subsequent Russian Civil War, it is not well known outside that context: the HF.30 was not adopted by other Allied air forces, and the manufacturers reused the "Farman F.30" designation for the Farman F.30 in 1917.Most descriptions appear to be based on Shavrov. W.M. Lamberton and E.F. Cheesman, Reconnaissance & bomber aircraft of the 1914-1918 War (Letchworth: Harleyford, 1960), p. 88 attribute it to "a 160 h.p. Canton-Unné engine", a description that better describes the motor of the 1917 fighter, and treat it, with little explanation, as a variant of the F.40 bomber.
Design and development The HF.30 was one of the final variants of the "Farman type", a distinctive aircraft layout developed by the Anglo-French brothers Henry and Maurice Farman. These were biplanes of a pusher configuration, with the propeller at the rear of the engine, behind the wings. The crew of two (pilot and observer) sat in front in an open cockpit, the wings were of a simple unstaggered) design, while the rear part of the plane was just a wire-braced framework supporting the tail.
The basic airframe of the HF.30 was very similar to the earlier and slightly smaller F.20, a two-bay biplane with a shorter lower wing (a primitive sesquiplane layout), a reasonably long v-shaped tail framework, and similar control surfaces - ailerons on the outer sections of the upper wings, and a single rudder and a high tailplane at the rear. It differed by reviving the raised fuselage position of the 1913 MF.11, positioning the cockpit and engine half-way between the wings rather than mounting them directly on top of the lower wing, and it was the first Farman to adopt the simple and robust v-strut undercarriage that was becoming standard. Perhaps most importantly, it improved on the underpowered F.20 by utilizing the much more potent Salmson 9 radial engine.The 150hp Salmson P9 engine is cited as having been used previously on the F.27, a large late variant of the F.20, both online and in Shavrov, History of Aircraft Construction (online excerpt); it is not listed in O. Thetford, British Naval Aircraft Since 1912, J.M. Bruce, The Aeroplanes of the Royal Flying Corps: Military Wing (London: Putnamm 1992), pp. 229-238, but is in J.J. Davilla and A.M. Soltan, French Aircraft of the First World War (Boulder, CA: Flying Machines Press), performance table.
Available sources generally record a top speed of , although a later version with uprated 160 hp engine known as the HF.30 bis raised performance to ; one source states a speed of , associated with a lighter version of the airframe.Shavrov, History of Aircraft Construction, L. Andersson, Soviet Aircraft and Aviation 1917-1941 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1994), p. 123, J.J. Davilla and A.M. Soltan, French Aircraft of the First World War (Mountain View, CA: Flying Machines Press, 1997); all of whom give a speed of 136 km/h among slightly varying figures that all appear to relate to the Dux Factory production; the 140 km/h version is cited by online sources while 155 km/h is quoted by J. Liron, Les Avions Farman, Docavia 21 (Clichy: Editions Lariviere, 1984), Shavrov also mentions a range of motors from 130hp to 175hp, the largest of which would probably produce a top speed above 140 km/h.). In comparative tests in 1916, the version with the engine proved to have superior performance to the Voisin 5 light bomber and Lebed XI scout, the other designs available for large-scale Russian production; the prototype Anatra DS was apparently faster, but that plane did not enter production until 1917.For the test, see here ; for the date of Anatra DS production, see here. One reference suggests that the HF.30 could more-or-less match the manoeuvrability of the opposing Fokker Eindecker, albeit perhaps at the very limit of its own flight envelope.Yu. Kislyakov and V. Babich, "History of Air-to-Air Combat Reviewed", originally published in Aviatsiya i kosmonavtika, 1986, transl. in: USSR Report: Military Affairs Aviation and Cosmonautics No 1, January 1986 (US Foreign Broadcast Information Service). pp. 34-52 at p. 51 (PDF).
In addition to these reasonably straightforward variants, the seaplane-skiplane hybrid known as the ShCh M-16 Zimnyak is also identified as a heavily modified subtype of the HF.30.The identification of the M.16 as a Farman 30 variant is from T. Heinonen, Thulinista Hornetiin – 75 vuotta Suomen ilmavoimien lentokoneita (Tikkakoski: Central Finland Aviation Museum, 1992), p. 38. The direct debt is not mentioned in the descriptions excerpted at flyingmachines.ru. Designed by D.P. Grigorovich, this retained only the Salmson and the basic layout of the HF.30, with a modified cockpit, shorter tail and staggered wings of equal length, plus a specialized undercarriage.
Operational history At the start of the First World War the Farman type pusher biplane was widely regarded as the best available design for a combat aircraft. The unencumbered position of the cockpit provided a very wide field of fire for a forward-facing gun, not to mention a good view ahead and to the sides for piloting, aerial reconnaissance and artillery spotting. The greater lift of a biplane design enabled the plane to carry a heavier cargo, such as a payload of bombs under the wings. The relatively simple airframe was also seen as suitable for mass production, especially before synchronization gear became widely available, these criteria were enough to outweigh the superior speed and flight performance offered by monoplane designs with a tractor propeller.
Other contemporary Allied warplanes, such as the French Breguet Bre.5 and the British F.E.2, DH.1 and D.H.2, used the Farman pusher layout.
Unusually the HF.30 was used exclusively by the Imperial Russian Air Service, and serial production appears to have taken place principally or entirely in Russia. The Air Service was already using Farman type aircraft extensively, and had substantial experience of manufacturing them under license. At an early stage, there had been talk of making the MF.11 the Air Service's primary plane, and in 1913 a HF.15 had been their first armed fighter.Shavrov, History of Aircraft Construction, pp. 145-6 (online excerpt for the HF.15; citations in English: MF.11 , HF.13 ). Details on how and when the HF.30 was procured seem sketchy, with vaguely indicated dates for its front-line deployment ranging from late 1915 to late 1916.Contrast Kislyakov and V. Babich, "History of Air-to-Air Combat Reviewed", p. 51 and Shavrov, History of Aircraft Construction, (online excerpt). One online source states that the type was designed in response to a specific Russian request, but adopted by the Aéronautique Militaire on the Western Front in December 1915 and achieved widespread deployment on the Eastern Front in late 1916. The new type was known as the Farman Tridtsat' (Фарман тридцать, "Farman Thirty", often written Фарман-XXX) and was nicknamed the "Fartri", or sometimes the "Farsal" (Фарсаль) from its Salomon engine.
The HF.30 appears to have been produced principally by the Dux Factory in Moscow, although some level of construction seems to have also taken place at several of the other major Russian aircraft factories.H.J. Nowarra and G.R. Duval, Russian Civil and Military Aircraft, 1884-1969 (London: Fountain Press Ltd., 1971), p. 49, indicates that HF.30s were built at Lebed and the Shchetinin seaplane factory, both in Petrograd, at Mosca as well as Dux in Moscow, and at Anatra in Odessa; Shchetinin certainly built the M-16 Zimnyak, but while Anatra received a copy of the plans, their actual involvement in construction has been questioned; they had built something approaching 300 planes using older Farman type designs, continuing to construct the F.20 and F.22 designs well after they had become militarily obsolete (online source); Shavrov, History of Aircraft Construction mentions that these were being used as trainers (online excerpts: F.20 F.22). A new factory at Berdyansk began to build the HF.30 in 1917 (online source). With over 400 planes built at Dux alone, it far outnumbered the Lebed and Anatra designs or the limited numbers of fighters assembled from imported components,The figure of 400 HF.30s at Dux appears to originate with Shavrov, History of Aircraft Construction (online excerpt). The orders for the Lebed XII and Anatra D were reduced from 400 or more to a little over 200 of each (online source; online source) although the situation is less clear with the Voisin V.Shavrov claims the Voisin V was only produced in limited quantities by Dux (online excerpt), but to this it seems there should be added at the very least a completed order for 100 Voisin-Ivanovs from Anatra (online source); one website gives a figure of 300-350 planes from Dux, plus 160 from other sources (online source) and 150 Voisin-Ivanovs from Anatra (online source). Alongside the HF.30, limited numbers of both the F.27 and the F.40 bomber were also procured.Online sources cite around 40 of the F.27 and 20 of the F.40.
In spite of its apparent ubiquity, there is little detailed information available about the combat role of the HF.30. As an Imperial military doctrine for the use of aircraft developed in 1914, armed Farman type biplanes (and a few Sikorsky S-12s) were designated for important fortress garrisons and each numbered army's headquarters, with unarmed monoplanes serving as high-speed scouts for front-line army corps,Capt. G.L. Stamper, Jr., USAF, "The Sikorsky S-16 and Russian Aviation During the Great War" (Unpublished MA Thesis, University of Georgia, 1995), pp. 13, 21-22 (online PDF). but by the outbreak of hostilities, this distinction seems to have been abandoned: for example, the squadron attached to 1 Corps flew the F.22, an immediate precursor of the HF.30.V.P. Kulikov with A.G. Blume, "Chronicle of the Operations of the 1st Corps Air Detachment of the Imperial Russian Air Service, 1914-1917", Over the Front vol.10 no. 1 (1995) pp. 149-161 at p. 149.
There are sketchy references to the type's involvement in air combat,Kislyakov and V. Babich, "History of Air-to-Air Combat Reviewed", p. 51, document a duel where an unarmed HF.30 was attacked by a Fokker Eindecker, manoeuvred against the German plane and threatened a ramming attack, and eventually escaped with a forced landing; some sources suggest that the aces Ivan Orlov and Konstantin Vakulovsky won early aerial victories in Farman type planes (online source), but these may have been older F.20 or F.22 versions, and Orlov initially flew as a volunteer in his own MF.7 (V. Kulnikov, Russian Aces of World War 1, Aircraft of the Aces 111 (New York: Osprey Publishing, 2013), "Farman" p. 93). Nonetheless, references to occasional aerial victories by the similar but lower-performance F.22 and F.27 show that the HF.30 ought to have been capable of success. During the Russian Civil War, a "White" Lebed XII is said to have crashed while being pursued by an aggressive "Red" HF.30. but it is not clear how far the HF.30 had been deployed before two consecutive developments in 1916 that curtailed its usefulness. Firstly, the Air Service began to restrict the air superiority role to new high-performance planes equipped with synchronization gears, like the imported Nieuport 11; then, the HF.30 was definitively outclassed in combat by new opponents, beginning with the Albatros D.I fighter and the Albatros C.V scout. Furthermore, the HF.30's "pusher" engine came to be regarded as a large, exposed target for attackers from the rear.