TheCurtiss Models F made up a family of earlyflying boats developed in theUnited States in the years leading up toWorld War I. Widely produced, Model Fs saw service with theUnited States Navy under the designationsC-2 throughC-5, later reclassified toAB-2 throughAB-5. Several examples were exported toRussia, and the type was built under license inItaly.
First successful flight of the CurtissFlying Fish overKeuka Lake, July 1912.[1]Marshall Earle Reid at Lake Keuka in his Curtiss seaplane, 1912. Note the step in the hull.Gustave Maurice Heckscher in his Curtiss seaplane at 60 miles per hour, 1912.
In configuration, these werebiplane flying boats powered by a singleengine mounted amongst theinterplane struts and driving apusher propeller. The pilot and a single passenger sat side by side in an opencockpit. The wing cellule was derived from theModel E landplane and was of two-bay, unstaggered, equal-span construction with largeailerons mounted on the interplane struts and extending past the span of the wings themselves. The earliest examples of this design were built and sold by Curtiss in 1912 without any designation applied to them; theModel F name only coming into use the following year. Confusingly, Curtiss also used the designationModel E to refer to some early machines in this family, although these were quite distinct from Curtiss landplanes that bore this same designation and all but identical to the Model Fs.
Model Fs built from 1918 featured a revised, unequal-span wing that incorporated the ailerons into the upper wing and sponsons on the sides of the hull to improve the aircraft's handling in water. These were known as theModel MF (for Modernised-F), and years later as theSeagull in the postwar civil market.
The US Navy initially purchased four of these aircraft in addition to theFreak Boat (C-1/AB-1) that it had already obtained and which was retrofitted to approximately the same design as the others. One of these, theC-2 became the first aircraft to fly underautomatic control on 30 August1913 when fitted with agyroscopic stabiliser designed byElmer Sperry. The same aircraft (by now redesignatedAB-2) then became the first aircraft to be launched bycatapult from a warship while underway when it took off fromUSS North Carolina on 5 November1915, piloted by CaptainHenry C. Mustin, Navy Air Pilot No.3, and Naval Aviator No. 11. Her sister,AB-3, became the first US heavier-than-air aircraft to see military action when launched from theUSS Mississippi on 25 April1914 on a scouting mission overVeracruz during theUnited States Occupation of Veracruz.[2]
The US Navy bought another eight aircraft before the end of 1916, but orders in quantity only came following the type's selection as the Navy's standard flying-boat trainer in April1917. An initial batch of 144 of the basic F model were ordered, followed by 22 MFs in 1918. Another 80 MFs were produced under license by theNaval Aircraft Factory. This aircraft was especially useful for training because of its favorablestall recovery, while many other aircraft of the era were likely to stall into aspin.[3] A small number of Model Es and Fs were also purchased by the US Army.
The Russian Navy purchased two batches of Model Fs in 1913-14 and operated them as part of the Black Sea and Baltic Sea fleets until replaced by theModel K shortly thereafter. In Italy, the Curtiss representativeEnea Bossi secured rights for local license-production of the Type F by theZari brothers, who built eight examples at their workshop inBovisa,Milan. The first of these was demonstrated to the Italian Navy onLake Como on 22 September 1914. The Model F was adopted byRegia Marina on the battleshipDante Alighieri, cruisersAmalfi andSan Marco, and theseaplane tenderElba.[4]
Rogers Airlines operated a postwar fleet of ten Curtiss Seagulls as late as 1927. The aircraft flew routes out of Miami and Nassau in the winter months and returned to upstate New York for maintenance and barnstorming in the summer.[5]
Parts of Model F serial number 112, which crashed in Connecticut in 1915, were incorporated into a restoration byCentury Aviation in Wenatchee, WA in 2016-2018. The plane took its first flight on Moses Lake in Washington on August 21, 2018.[12]
^Nicolle, David C. (August 2019).Air Power and the Arab World 1909-1955 Volume 1: Military Flying Services in Arab Countries, 1909-191. Helion. p. 33.ISBN9781912866434.
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