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American Combat Planes of the 20th Century is an incredible reference for anyone who is interested in any American Combat Plane History. There are 758 pages and 1700 b/w photos in this substantial labor of love by Ray Wagner, who has been passionately researching and writing about aircraft for over 50 years. Whether you are already familiar with his past works, or just discovering this accomplished author for the first time... This is the book that you've been waiting for!

If you'd like to see the book's Table of Contents ... Click here. You can also browse the entire Index Section to get an idea of the extensive amount of information that is covered within this book.

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Flying Boats for Navy Patrols, 1917-1934

Page 3

The British improved on the Curtiss hull design at their Felixstowe station with a series of twin-engine flying boats, called the F-1 to F-5. While retaining the biplane configuration and RAF-6 airfoil, the larger F-5 had a stronger and more streamlined hull. Plans of the F-5 were brought to the NAF in March 1918, and this design was modified for quantity production with American manufacturing details and Liberty engines as the F-5L, to distinguish it from British types powered by Rolls-Royce engines.

The first NAF F-5L was flown at Philadelphia by John C. Porte on July 15, 1918, with straight balanced ailerons and a rounded rudder balanced below the horizontal surface. They arrived at Hampton Roads on September 3, 1918, too late for action, and 33 were built by the NAF by December 31. Although 543 F-5Ls were canceled, production continued until 137 were completed by September 1919. Sixty more were built by Curtiss, and 30 were produced in Canada. NAVAL AIRCRAFT FACTORY F-5L

The $34,800 F-5L carried four 230-pound bombs under the wings and four Lewis guns at the bow and rear cockpits and waist openings. A crew of four or five were provided with a 260-pound radio, Very signal pistol, and two pigeons. A taller rudder, horn-balanced at the top, and tested on two F-6 prototypes delivered in January 1919, was fitted to all the F-5L boats in service, as well as to the H-16s, which also adopted the balanced ailerons and open pilots’ cockpits.

Curtiss also built for Britain a single triplane flying boat in 1916, which had four 250-hp engines and a 134-foot wing span. Known as the Curtiss T, it was shipped to Britain for its first flight, but was wrecked on its first test. A more practical approach was begun by an August 27, 1917, Navy proposal to design Liberty-powered aircraft capable of flying directly to Britain.

Four NC (Navy Curtiss) boats ordered in December 1917 were the largest American planes of 1918, designed to fly across the Atlantic to join in anti-submarine patrols. When first flown on October 4, 1918, at Rockaway NAS, the NC-l had three 350-hp Libertys, but NC-2 had four paired in two nacelles. NAF F-5L (post-war modified) NAVY-CURTISS NC-4

A fourth was added behind NC-1’s center engine to turn a pusher propeller, and that arrangement was chosen for the next two built at the Curtiss Garden City factory. A gunner’s position installed on the NC-1’s upper wing was not on the others. The last, NC-4, first flew April 30, 1919.

Biplane tail surfaces were mounted high on spruce outriggers from the hull and huge RAF-6 wings, an arrangement calculated to clear waves and “permit a machine gun to be fired straight aft… without interference,” although the field of fire in almost every other direction was cluttered. A 45-foot hull contained a bow cockpit, side-by-side pilot’s cockpits, rear compartment, radio, and fuel tanks. Top speed was 90 mph light, and 81 mph loaded, not much of a margin over the landing speed.

In May 1919, the NC-4 became the first plane to fly across the Atlantic, and became an exhibit in the Naval Air Museum at Pensacola. Two sister ships, NC-1 & NC-3, which also attempted the Newfoundland-Azores-Lisbon-Plymouth flight, landed at sea and were unable to takeoff again.

The NAF received and order for four NC boats in 1919, and after NC-5 and 6 were delivered in May 1920, two more were added. While the first two had three engines, the third a pusher in the center nacelle, the other six, NC-7/-10, had four when delivered in 1921. They had a high accident rate and seemed unreliable for steady patrol work.

NAF NC-6

A smaller flying boat was designed by the Navy to provide a twin-engine, three-place escort fighter to support the larger patrol planes. Called the NAF TF for “Tandem Fighter”, it resembled a small-sized NC, with two Wright-Hispano engines back-to-back in a center nacelle, and twin rudders. Four were ordered April 9, 1919, and the first was flown at Philadelphia on October 13, 1920. Unsatisfactory tests halted further development.

The largest flying boat project designed at Philadelphia was a “Giant Boat” for use over the vast distances of the Pacific. It was to be a 70,000-pound, 150-foot span triplane with nine Liberty engines in three Gallaudet-built nacelles, tandem geared to turn tractor propellers

Construction was authorized June 7, 1920, and promised range was 1,877 miles at 78 mph, with up to 4,000 gallons of gas and 6,000 pounds of bombs, and cockpits for five .50-caliber guns. Work on the NC-style Giant halted in 1922 as high costs and technical problems discouraged the Navy. At that stage of engineering, it would probably have been even less successful than the Army’s Barling bomber.

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