How many Avro 504s had been built by 1918?

Short answer

According to different sources, 8,340 or 8,970: Flight magazine gives 8,340 produced by the end of 1918, and the Jane's Vintage Aircraft Recognition Guide, 8,970 built during the war (according to different sources). In total, more than 10,000 were built between 1913 and 1932, when production ended.

Published: November 6, 2026 · Updated: November 6, 2026 · Edited by Above Ten Thousand · Editorial policy

How many Avro 504s had been built by 1918?

Avro 504K, archive image, registration G-ADEVRonnie Macdonald from Chelmsford, United Kingdom (CC BY), vía commons

From the Avro 500 to the 504

The Avro 504 was a development of the earlier Avro 500, designed for training and private flying. Alliott Verdon Roe considered the family formed by the Avro Type E, the Type 500 and the Type 502 to be his company's first truly successful design, the forerunner of the Avro 504, one of the outstanding aircraft of the First World War.

First flight in 1913

Fred "Freddie" Raynham first flew it from Brooklands on 18 September 1913, with a seven-cylinder Gnome Lambda rotary engine of 80 hp (60 kW).

Two figures for 1918

According to Flight magazine, in a July 1954 article, 8,340 Avro 504s had been produced by the end of 1918; the 2005 Jane's Vintage Aircraft Recognition Guide gives 8,970 built during the conflict (according to different sources). The two figures do not measure exactly the same thing, since one counts up to the close of 1918 and the other refers to wartime production, but neither work explains the difference.