Westland C.O.W. Gun Fighter

The Westland C.O.W. Gun Fighter was an attempt to produce a fighter aircraft armed with a heavy calibre gun. The Coventry Ordnance Works (COW) 37 mm automatic gun was used, which had been developed for this purpose some years earlier.

Design and development
The design was in response to Air Ministry specification F.29/27. The design was an open cockpit single engined metal monoplane with fabric covering. The aircraft design had already been submitted for specification F.20/27 as the Westland Interceptor but had lost out to the Gloster Gauntlet. The gun was in the fuselage and fired up at an angle, in order to attack bombers from below. This concept was similar to the Schräge Musik system used by Germany during World War II. The plane first flew at the end of 1930 but the trials did not give satisfactory results to continue with the idea.

The COW gun had been developed by 1918 for use in aircraft and had been trialled on the Airco DH.4.