The Emsco B-8 was a two-seat, single-engine, low-wing, twin boom experimental aircraft designed by
Charles F. Rocheville in 1930 while he was vice president of
Emsco Aircraft Corporation,
Long Beach, California
Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the seventh-most populous city in California.
Incorporate ...
.
Development
Rocheville sought for a safe, fool-proof airplane with exceptional range, endurance, and payload. He intended to make a non-stop flight from
Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...
to
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
with navigator
Theo Lundgren, a distance of about .
The aircraft, registered NX55W, first flew on 17 April 1930.
By June 1930 it had been fitted with a
Pratt & Whitney R-985 Wasp Junior
The Pratt & Whitney R-985 Wasp Junior is a series of nine-cylinder, air-cooled, radial aircraft engines built by the Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Company from the 1930s to the 1950s. These engines have a displacement of ; initial versions produced ...
nine-cylinder
radial engine
The radial engine is a reciprocating type internal combustion engine configuration in which the cylinders "radiate" outward from a central crankcase like the spokes of a wheel. It resembles a stylized star when viewed from the front, and is ...
.
[ Development ended in November 1930 because of lack of funds and the B-8 was scrapped.]
Design
Despite its name 'Flying Wing' the aircraft carried a twin-boom empennage with a single vertical fin. The two crew sat in open tandem cockpits in a central nacelle with circular cross-section, initially with a Continental A-70 in tractor configuration. The nacelle ended in a jet-engine like 'exhaust' nozzle at its rear, which actually was an intake to a boundary-layer bleed system driven by the engine which blew air through spanwise slots in the rear part of the 'Flying Wing' in an attempt to increase the wing's performance. Another unusual characteristic of the design was its “reversed tricycle landing gear” with two main wheels under the front wing and a single aft wheel under the rear-end of the nacelle.
Specifications (Emsco B-8)
See also
References
External links
* Images of the Emsco B-8
{{Emsco aircraft
Twin-boom aircraft
1930s United States experimental aircraft
Low-wing aircraft
Single-engined tractor aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1930