The Curtiss R2C was a racing aircraft designed for the United States Navy in 1923 by

Curtiss Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company (1909 – 1929) was an American aircraft manufacturer originally founded by Glenn Hammond Curtiss and Augustus Moore Herring in Hammondsport, New York. After significant commercial success in its first decad ...

. It was a single-seater biplane with a monocoque fuselage and staggered

single-bay A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While a ...

wings of unequal span braced with I-struts. The aircraft's advanced streamlining featured a top wing mounted directly to the top of the fuselage and surface-mounted radiators for cooling the engine. The aircraft was originally designed and built as a landplane under the Navy designation R2C-1, of which two examples were produced. One was converted into a seaplane version known as the R2C-2 the following year.

Operational history

The R2C-1s were entered in the 1923 Pulitzer Trophy race, and took first and second places piloted by Lt jg Al Williams and Lt Harold Brow at average speeds of 243.67 mph (392.16 km/h) and 241.78 mph (389.11 km/h). Later in the year, Brow took one of the R2C-1s to 259.16 mph (417.06 km/h) and set a new world airspeed record. On 4 November 1923, Lieutenant Alford J. Williams, Jr., U.S. Navy, set a ''Fédération Aéronautique Internationale'' (FAI) World Record for Speed Over a 3-Kilometer Course of 429.03 kilometers per hour (266.59 miles per hour). (FAI Record File Number 8753) The second aircraft was sold shortly thereafter to the US Army for the token sum of $1. The Army designated it the R-8 and intended to race the aircraft against the Navy in the 1924 Pulitzer Trophy Race in

Fairfield, Ohio Fairfield is a suburban city located in both Butler and Hamilton counties in the U.S. state of Ohio. Fairfield is located approximately 25 miles north of Cincinnati and is situated on the east bank of the Great Miami River. The population ...

, but it was destroyed in a crash during training shortly before the competition killing the pilot,

First Lieutenant First lieutenant is a commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces; in some forces, it is an appointment. The rank of lieutenant has different meanings in different military formations, but in most forces it is sub-divided into a ...

Alexander Pearson, Jr. The remaining R2C had its wheeled undercarriage replaced by pontoons during 1924 in preparation for that year's Schneider Trophy race, but the event was cancelled due to a lack of competitors. As it was, the aircraft won that year's Pulitzer Trophy in the seaplane class with an average speed of 227.5 mph (364.9 km/h). The aircraft ended its days training pilots for the 1925 and 1926 Schneider Trophy races.

Variants

;R2C-1:Landplane racer, two built (''A6691'' and '' A6692''). ;R2C-2:Floatplane racer, one converted from ''A6692''.

Operators

; *

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

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, ...

Operational history

Variants

Operators

Specifications (R2C-1)

See also

References

Further reading