How powerful was the Fairey Fox VIR's Hispano-Suiza 12Y?

By the end of January 1934 Fairey had completed a new version of the Fox, the Fox IV. It was a Fox II converted with a Hispano-Suiza 12Ybrs engine, which first flew on 31 January 1934. According to Belgian Wings, the engine was a 775 hp 12Ybrs, and the fuselage was lengthened by 8 cm to compensate for its greater weight. Loaned for testing to the parent company at Hayes, the aircraft was refined with a new cockpit canopy and aerodynamic wheel fairings. In this configuration it was tested as a long-range fighter, under the provisional designation Fox VM.

Back in Belgium it lost the wheel fairings and received an even more powerful engine, the Hispano-Suiza 12Ydrs, of 830 or 860 hp according to different sources (according to different sources). Of the Fox VIR reconnaissance version, 24 were built for Belgium and two for Switzerland. The aircraft received the final designation Fox VIR, the R standing for reconnaissance. It was presented to the Belgian authorities in August 1934, after which an order for 24 aircraft was signed.

Eight Fox IIICs carried a fully supercharged Rolls-Royce Kestrel V, of 600 hp at 3,000 m. The Aéronautique Militaire Belge ordered 52 aircraft of a simpler modification of the Fox VIR, the Fox VIC. The first Fox VIC left the factory on 21 September 1935.