Dear all!
This is my first post here – I hope my question/request (which I’m working at for about three years now…) hasn’t been raised or answered before in this forum – at least I haven’t found anything…
I am looking for a – preferably complete – overview on Curtiss and Curtiss-Wright type numbers. Apparently such systems were retroactively introduced by Curtiss after they lost track of their innumerable constructions.
The first (Curtiss) system begins with the “Jenny” = Curtiss Model 1 and ends (as far as I know) with the Model 99 = XF15C. The second (Curtiss-Wright) system starts with the CW-1 Junior and ends (again: as far as I know) with the CW-29 “Blackhawk”.
I haven’t been able to find the complete list(s) on the Internet and even at the Curtiss Museum at Hammondsport they didn’t have a brochure/brook or something with this kind of information…
Any help would be very much appreciated – if there’s no complete list from a Curtiss book or so, I would also welcome individual types’ type numbers. In the last-mentioned cased I could add a list of the designations I have found so far in a few days…
Thanks in advance and regards from Leverkusen/Germany,
Thomas
By: J Boyle - 22nd November 2009 at 16:28
Have you seen Curtiss Aircraft 1907-1947 by Peter M. Bowers. Putnam, 1979 and 1987 (reprint)?
On pages 627-629 there is an appendix: “Curtiss Aeroplanes Listed by Curtiss Numerical Model Designation System of 1935”
To quote from its introduction…
“The numerical designation list of 1935, which was made up to be retroactive to 1916, overlooked many models and is not always chronologically accurate. However, it is ‘Official’ and is published here in its entirety for the first time outside Curtiss documents.”
As you indicate, it does begin with the model 1, the JN-4A and ends with the 99, the XF15C-1.
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November 22, 2009 at 4:05 pm