Photo USAAS Monoplane ID needed

[musec04]

Hello,


Currently on ebay is a photo of a US operated monoplane at:


https://www.ebay.com/itm/LB-Commerci...wAAOSwO1NeaZKC


'Well, Toto, i've a feeling we're not in France anymore' but location aside what is the aircraft shown?


Regards,


Clint

[Stig Jarlevik]

Quite so Clint

I don't believe this aircraft ever went very far from its airfield Langley Field.
It is a Pigeon-Fraser Albree Monoplane Scout.

Only two were built and the first one, 116 made some small hops with a contractor pilot, since no Air Service pilot was allowed to even come close.

No 116 was then sand tested to destruction on 16 Jan 1918.
Its sister 117 was never flown and shipped from Langley to McCook without any engine for strength test - and was destroyed in the process.

I can't help thinking these very unsafe aircraft were more or less deliberately destroyed since the commanding officer at McCook wrote "I sincerely hope that we shall never hear from this job again"

Amazingly a third aircraft was allowed to be built (no s/n applied) and for some obscure reason an Army pilot was allowed to test fly it, on Christmas Eve 1918. Sadly the aircraft was so bad that 2/Lt Munford almost immediately lost control and crashed to his death.

My source is of course Robert Casari and his "Bible"

B Rgds
Stig

[musec04]

Excellent Stig,


I don't think I'd have recognised that in a million years.


A small follow up. What exactly is sand testing, I've not seen the term before.


Regards,


Clint

[Stig Jarlevik]

Well Clint

It was the old way of testing structural integrity.
Instead of Fokker placing large groups of people on top of his aircraft's wings, a bit more scientific way was to fill sandbags with an exact amount (weight) of sand and stack them on the most vulnerable parts of the aircraft - wings generally and determine when they broke.

Cheers
Stig