Wright-Bellanca WB-1

WB-1
Role Cabin monoplane
National origin United States
Manufacturer Wright-Bellanca[1]
Designer Giuseppe Mario Bellanca
First flight September 1925
Number built 1

The Wright-Bellanca WB-1 was designed by Giuseppe Mario Bellanca for the Wright Aeronautical corporation for use in record-breaking flights.[2]

Development

The WB-1 was a high-winged monoplane with conventional landing gear and all-wood construction. The landing gear fairings were constructed to extend into wheel pants.[3][4]

Operational history

The WB-1 was demonstrated at the 1925 Pulitzer Prize Air Races in New York. In the first day's flights, the WB-1 clocked in 121.8 mph in a closed course race. On day two, the WB-1 won in a payload versus hp and speed efficiency contest, beating a Curtiss Oriole and Sikorsky S-31. In 1926, pilot Fred Becker crashed the overloaded aircraft in a world-record endurance attempt. The aircraft cartwheeled and broke up on a landing attempt.[5][6]

Specifications (WB-1)

Data from Air and Space, Air Pictorial 1975

General characteristics

  • Crew: 1
  • Capacity: 5
  • Wingspan: 45 ft (14 m)
  • Powerplant: 1 × Wright J-4 Whirlwind 9-cyl. air-cooled radial piston engine, 200 hp (150 kW)
  • Propellers: 2-bladed

Performance

See also

Related development

References

  1. ↑ "Air and Space Guseppe M. Bellanca Collection". Retrieved 29 September 2013.
  2. ↑ Joe Jackson. Atlantic Fever: Lindbergh, His Competitors, and the Race to Cross the Atlantic. p. 127.
  3. ↑ AOPA Pilot Volume 13, Part 1: 35. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  4. ↑ Ross Smyth. The Lindbergh of Canada: The Erroll Boyd Story. p. 63.
  5. ↑ Michael Gough. The Pulitzer Air Races: American Aviation and Speed Supremacy, 1920-1925. p. 175.
  6. ↑ Jay P. Spenser. Bellanca C.F.the emergence of the cabin monoplane in the United States. p. 45.

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