The Curtiss Eagle (retroactively designated the Model 19 by Curtiss some years later) was an airliner produced in small numbers in the United States shortly after

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. The aircraft was a conventional biplane with three-bay, unstaggered wings of equal span. The fuselage was a very advanced design for its day, incorporating careful streamlining of its monocoque structure, and offering the crew as well as the passengers a fully enclosed cabin. The Eagle is sometimes named as the first American tri-motor aircraft; however Curtiss' own

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flying boat flew with three engines for a time in 1914 before being converted back to twin-engine configuration.

Development

Curtiss had developed the Eagle in preparation for an anticipated post-war boom in civil aviation. In fact, this boom was far smaller than Curtiss had been hoping for, and practically all of the demand for passenger aircraft was met by the conversion of war-surplus military aircraft that could be purchased extremely cheaply. As such, only around 20 machines were built. The original trimotor Eagle design was followed by a single example of the Eagle II, with twin engines, and by three Eagle IIIs with only one engine. These latter aircraft were purchased by the

United States Army Air Service The United States Army Air Service (USAAS)Craven and Cate Vol. 1, p. 9 (also known as the ''"Air Service"'', ''"U.S. Air Service"'' and before its legislative establishment in 1920, the ''"Air Service, United States Army"'') was the aerial war ...

, which used them as staff transports and converted one example into an air ambulance.

Operational history

On 28 May 1921, in one of the first major crashes in aviation history, Army Air Service Curtiss Eagle Serial Number ''64243'', the air ambulance, of the

1st Provisional Air Brigade The 1st Provisional Air Brigade was a temporary unit of the United States Army Air Service, commanded by Col. Billy Mitchell, operating out of Langley Field, Virginia, that was used in Project B to demonstrate the vulnerability of ships to aerial ...

crashed "Crashed" is the third U.S. rock Single (music), single, (the fifth overall), from the band Daughtry (band), Daughtry's debut album. It was released only to U.S. rock stations on September 5, 2007. Upon its release the song got adds at those stat ...

during a severe thunderstorm attempting to land at

Morgantown, Maryland Morgantown is an unincorporated community in Charles County, Maryland, United States. It lies south of the Governor Harry W. Nice Memorial Bridge on the Potomac River at Lower Cedar Point. Morgantown is known for the Mirant Morgantown Generating ...

while returning to

Bolling Field The origins of the surname Bolling: English: from a nickname for someone with close-cropped hair or a large head, Middle English bolling "pollard", or for a heavy drinker, from Middle English bolling "excessive drinking". German (Bölling): from ...

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, from

Langley Field Langley may refer to: People * Langley (surname), a common English surname, including a list of notable people with the name * Dawn Langley Simmons (1922–2000), English author and biographer * Elizabeth Langley (born 1933), Canadian perform ...

, Virginia. The pilot, 1st Lt. Stanley M. Ames, and six passengers were killed. Four of the six were Air Service officers and an enlisted man. Two United States congressmen had chosen not to make the flight because of airsickness on the flight from Washington to Langley. The Army's Inspector General conducted an investigation of the crash and theorized that the aircraft stalled when it encountered an updraft at low altitude while trying to clear trees near the unfamiliar field and fell vertically, nose first, into the ground.

Variants

;Curtiss Eagle :Three-engined passenger airliner, accommodating two pilots and eight passengers, powered by three 150-hp (112-kW) Curtiss K-6 piston engines. ;Eagle II :Twin-engined version, powered by two 400-hp (298-kW) Curtiss C-12 engines; one built. ;Eagle III :Single-engined version, powered by a 400-hp (298-kW)

Liberty L-12 The Liberty L-12 is an American water-cooled 45° V-12 aircraft engine displacing and making designed for a high power-to-weight ratio and ease of mass production. It saw wide use in aero applications, and, once marinized Marinisation (also m ...

engine; three built.

Operators

; *

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

Specifications (Eagle I)

References

* * * {{Curtiss aircraft 1910s United States airliners

Eagle Eagle is the common name for many large birds of prey of the family Accipitridae. Eagles belong to several groups of genera, some of which are closely related. Most of the 68 species of eagle are from Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just ...

Trimotors Biplanes Aircraft first flown in 1919