A contemporary Pemberton-Billing Ltd advertisement from 1914, giving the leading particulars and a brief description of the P.B.7. The illustration shows the machine in flight at the top, and with its wings, tail and air propellers “slipped” after alighting on water. The two P.B.7 hulls were later converted into flying-boat tenders.

An impression of what the completed S.S.1 may have looked like while moored and in military colours. It bears serial N1293, one of a batch of serials (N1290 to N1299) set aside for Supermarine-built AD flying-boats, but of which only N1290 was completed. The remaining serials were cancelled in March 1918.

A series of illustrations from the Supermarine brochure of 1919 depicting the S.S.1, with drawings of the proposed machine in flight, after ‘‘Dropping the Planes” and “Ready for Packing on Submarine Deck”. Although it was included in the 1919 brochure, the S.S.1 has largely been forgotten in subsequent histories of the company.

SUPERMARINE S.S.1. This three-view of the Supermarine S.S. 1 SingleSeat Bomber has been compiled from company blueprints, drawings and sketches. The equal-span single-bay unstaggered biplane wings were of 32ft (9-75m)-span. Technical details of the quick-release system remain undiscovered.

The 15ft (4-57m)-long hull of the S.S.1 minus its wings, square-section boom and empennage. The flying-control mechanisms are shown, as is the position of the six-cylinder liquid-cooled engine in the rear section, which powered a chain-drive connected to the propeller mounted at the forward end of the empennage boom.

Noel Pemberton Billing submitted his first patent application for the "slip-wing" system in late 1913, and supplemented this with additional ideas in 1914. The two layouts seen here incorporate elements developed for the proposed P.B.7 and "P.B.31”/S.S.1 (P.B.31 was allocated to the Nighthawk quadruplane).

Glenn Curtiss's BT flying-boat design, patented in 1918, bore a striking resemblance to the S.S.1 with its slip-wing empennage, and may have violated aspects of Pemberton Billing’s original 1913 patents.