While looking for something else (isn't that always the way it works?),
I found some information that I hope will clear up this mystery. In
_Color Profiles of World War I Combat Planes_ by Apostollo and Begnozzi
(New York: Crescent Books, 1974), the authors state that the Camel
originally was intended to be a replacement for the Baby floatplane:
"The first machines were apparently an improved version of the
seaplane, the F.S.1 'Improved Baby', witha 130-hp Clerget rotary
engine. Following the destruction of one plane during a test flight in
March 1917, a second was built as a land plane and served as prototype
for the 2F.1, which could be launched from a barge for use at sea
(apparently the project of reconverting it to a seaplane for
operational tests on the Belgian coast was never carried through.) The
first two aircraft ordered by the Admiralty were land planes, as were
the three prototypes ordered by the Royal Flying Corps."
There is a side-view line drawing of the proposed Camel amphibian on
page 39 which doesn't look TOO diffenent from a production F.1. It
would sure make an interesting conversion project!
If anybody wants a photocopy of this drawing, e-mail me at the address
below.
Cheers,
Tom Eisenhour
t_eisen@ix.netcom.com