[ thanks - I just looked up Wikipedia's disambiguation page for Fox and found no aircraft ]
=leftThe Fox entered service with
No. 12 Squadron RAF in June 1926.
[12] The Fox proved to have spectacular performance, being 50 mph (80 km/h) faster than the Fairey Fawns that it replaced in 12 Squadron, and as fast as contemporary fighters.
[13] Such was the performance of the Fox that 12 Squadron was instructed to fly no faster than 140 mph (225 km/h) during annual Air Defence Exercises in order to give the defending fighters a chance.
[14] Despite this, no further RAF squadrons were equipped with the Fox, and only 28 were purchased in total, with later aircraft being powered by the Kestrel engine and surviving Curtiss engined aircraft being re-fitted with the Kestrel. 12 Squadron, which later adopted a fox's mask as squadron badge in memory of their sole usage of the aircraft, remained equipped with the Fox until 1931, being finally replaced by the Hawker Hart. Foxes remained in use as dual control trainers at the
Royal Air Force College Cranwell until 1933.
[15]=leftTwo superannuated Fox Mk.Is took part in the 1934
MacRobertson Air Race from
London to
Melbourne. One of them occasioned the only fatalities of the race when it crashed in
Italy. The other, commanded by Australian
Ray Parer (a veteran of the 1919 England to Australia Air Race), had struggled no further than
Paris when news came through that the race winner had completed the course. Parer and co-pilot Geoff Hemsworth continued an epic and eventful journey, taking nearly four months to reach Melbourne.
[16]=leftThe first Fox IIs entered service with the Belgian Air Force in early 1932 as a reconnaissance aircraft, with one winning the "Circuit of the Alps" race for two-seat military aircraft at the 1932 Zurich Aviation meeting.
[17][18] The Fox continued in production at Avions Fairey at
Gosselies for much of the 1930s, forming the backbone of the Belgian Air Force, being used as reconnaissance, reconnaissance-bomber and two-seater fighters. Later aircraft were fitted with enclosed canopies and more powerful
Hispano-Suiza 12Y engines.
[19]Over 100 Foxes were still in front-line service with the Belgian Air Force at the time of the German invasion on 10 May 1940.[20] Although massively outclassed by the aircraft of the Luftwaffe they flew about 75 sorties and even claimed one kill of a Messerschmitt Bf 109.[20][21]