Bristol M.1  The Bristol M.1 Monoplane Scout was a British monoplane fighter of the First World War. It holds the distinction of being the only British monoplane fighter to reach production during the conflict. During mid-1916, work commenced at Bristol on a new fighter aircraft as a private venture, headed by aeronautical engineer Frank Barnwell. In comparison to contemporary efforts by other British manufacturers, such as Airco's DH.5, the emerging design was considered to be more radical, having adopted a highly aerodynamically clean monoplane configuration. It featured a carefully streamlined circular cross-section fuselage built using conventional wood and fabric construction techniques to minimise manufacturing difficulty. On 14 July 1916, the first prototype, designated as the "M.1A", conducted its maiden flight, flown by F.P. Raynham. During testing, the type quickly demonstrated its capabilities as a high speed aircraft for the era, possessing a maximum speed that was some 30–50 mph (50–80 km/h) higher than any of the contemporary German Fokker "Eindecker" and French Morane-Saulnier N monoplanes. Despite its promise, only 130 aircraft were constructed. This was largely due to an institutional mistrust of the monoplane platform held by the British War Office and many pilots of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) at that time, believing it to be accident-prone and inferior to the more common biplane configuration used by many of the M.1's contemporaries. As a consequence of the type being believed to possess too great a landing speed to be safely handled by the constrained French airfields on the Western Front, the M.1 was commonly deployed to the Middle East and the Balkans theatres instead. A single ace pilot, Captain Frederick Dudley Travers DFC of No. 150 Squadron RAF, flew the type, having successfully shot down several opponents. During December 1918, Lt. Dagoberto Godoy of the Royal Navy, flew from Santiago to Mendoza, Argentina, a feat which was recorded as being the first flight conducted across the Andes mountain chain. During the First World War, rapid advances in the field of aeroplanes were being made amongst the participating nations, each side aiming to acquire an advantage over the enemy. In the summer of 1916, British aeronautical engineer Frank Barnwell, the chief designer of the Bristol Aeroplane Company, realising the performance of existing fighter aircraft to be inadequate, set about designing a new fighter aircraft as a private venture.