Felixstowe F.2 The Felixstowe F.2 was a 1917 British flying boat class designed and developed by Lieutenant Commander John Cyril Porte RN at the naval air station, Felixstowe during the First World War adapting a larger version of his superior Felixstowe F.1 hull design married with the larger Curtiss H-12 flying boat. The Felixstowe hull had superior water contacting attributes and became a key base technology in most seaplane designs thereafter. The Felixstowe F.2A was used as a patrol aircraft over the North Sea until the end of the war.…
Tag: Aircraft week 9
GEORGES LEVY 40 HB2
Georges Levy 40 HB2 Avation Maritime’s distrust of triplane flying boats such as the Levy-Besson “Alerte” led the firm to design a version with the more traditional biplane wings, the Georges Levy 40 HB2. (“HB2” probably stood for Hydravion Bombardement with a crew of two.). With a 280hp Renault engine, the plane had good performance and it could carry larger bombs than other French flying boats. It entered service in November 1917. One hundred were ordered in France, and twelve were used by the US Navy. Though it was originally…
Lohner E
Lohner E The Lohner E was a reconnaissance flying boat built in Austria-Hungary during World War I. The “E” stood for Igo Etrich, one of the Lohner engineers. It was a conventional design for its day with biplane wings that featured slight sweepback, and an engine mounted pusher-fashion in the interplane gap. Its crew of two was seated in an open cockpit. Around 40 examples were built before production shifted to the more powerful L Plastic Kit Build Lohner E First flight: 10 November 1913 Number built: approximately 40 Crew:…
Aeromarine 40F
Aeromarine 40F The Aeromarine 40F was an American two-seat flying-boat training aircraft produced for the US Navy and built by the Aeromarine Plane and Motor Company of Keyport, New Jersey. Fifty out of an original order for 200 were delivered before the end of World War I, with the remainder cancelled due to the armistice. The aircraft was a biplane with a pusher propeller. The pilot and instructor sat side by side. The Aeromarine 41 developed from the Aeromarine 40. At least some of the Model 40s were later converted…
Hansa-Brandenburg W.20
Hansa-Brandenburg W.20 The Hansa-Brandenburg W.20 was a German submarine-launched reconnaissance flying boat of the World War I era, designed and built by Hansa-Brandenburg. Due to the need to be stored and launched from a submarine aircraft carrier, the W.20 was a small single-seat biplane flying boat that was designed to be assembled and dismantled quickly. It had a slender hull on which was mounted a biplane wing and a conventional braced tailplane. It was powered by a seven-cylinder, 80 PS Oberursel U.0 rotary engine — basically a German-made near-clone of…
Macchi M.12
Macchi M.12 The Macchi M.12 was a flying boat bomber produced in small numbers in Italy in 1918. It had a conventional design generally similar to an enlarged version of other Macchi designs of the period and featured the Warren truss-style interplane struts that had been introduced on the Macchi M.9. A major difference however, was its twin-boom fuselage, each with a separate tailfin. The manufacturer Nieuport-Macchi, having acquired experience in seaplanes, began to study a new aircraft which he then offered to the Regia Marina under the designation of…
Grigorovitch M9
Grigorovitch M9 Also called ShCh M-9 or Shchetinin M-9 this Russian ww1 biplane flying boat was a development of the M-5, ready in the fall of 1915, which first flew on January 9, 1916 at Baku. By September 17, 1916, Jan Nagórski, test pilot, became the first to make a loop with a flying boat, worldwide. A good indicator of its agility and handling characteristics. The Grigorovitch M9 became the best-seller of the company, being produced by the hundreds (an estimated 500+) by Shchetinin up to the civil war. This…