curtisshawk

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Maughan

I like that R-6 racer. It looks a lot like the P-5 Superhawk from a few years later.

This is a Curtiss XPW-8 Hawk pursuit aircraft. A prototype of the (as noted) same type (PW-8) flown by Lt. Russell Maughan during his "Dawn-to-Dusk" transcontinental flight in June 1924. Given the January 1923 ("1-19-23") date inscribed on the bottom of the print, this particular aircraft is almost certainly the first XPW-8 built. It would officially be acquired by the US Army Air Service in April of that year and assigned the serial number A.S. 23-1201, and the McCook Field project number P-295. It would later be modified with a second cockpit added and the aircraft given the designation of Corps Observation Experimental (CO-X). See: www.thisdayinaviation.com/tag/curtiss-pw-8-hawk/

23 June 1924: Lieutenant Russell Lowell Maughan, Air Service, United States Army, took off from Mitchel Field, Long Island, New York, at 3:58 a.m., Eastern Time, and flew across the country to land at Crissy Field, at the Presidio of San Francisco, California at 9:46 p.m., Pacific Time. He covered a distance of 2,670 miles (4,297 kilometers) in 21 hours, 47 minutes. Maughan’s actual flight time was 20 hours, 48 minutes. He averaged 128.37 miles per hour (206.59 kilometers per hour). His Dawn-To-Dusk transcontinental flight took place on a mid-summer day in order to take advantage of the longer hours of daylight, and he flew from East to West, to follow the advancing Sun across the sky.

Here's a seeming contemporaneous photo (note the prop position, wheel and skid tracks, the aircraft has been manhandled and turned presumably to capture the best light for the photo) of the very same aircraft from the rear quarter. It is posted by at the San Diego Air & Space Museum (SDASM) Archives here in the Flickr Commons, as part of their Ray Wagner Collection: www.flickr.com/photos/sdasmarchives/16438572488/ See also: www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_curtiss_PW-8.html www.joebaugher.com/usaf_serials/1922.html

TVL1970 Thanks for the great info!

No This is 23-1201. 23-1207 was a Fokker. Stig

The one-of-a-kind Gulfhawk was flown from 1930 to 1936 by Al Williams, former chief test pilot for the U.S. Navy and famous aerobatic pilot. Originally built by Curtiss as a Hawk I export demonstrator with a Curtiss D-12 liquid-cooled engine, it was converted to a Hawk 1A with a Wright Cyclone air-cooled radial engine, then further modified by Williams several times. He flew the Gulfhawk in military and public air shows to promote military aviation during the inter-war years, when aviation budgets were low. By 1933, Williams managed and flew for the aviation department of Gulf Oil Company, which painted the Gulfhawk in its familiar color scheme of orange with white and blue trim. After Williams' death, movie stunt pilot Frank Tallman restored and flew the airplane and displayed it between shows at the Tallmantz Movieland of the Air Museum airandspace.si.edu/collections/artifact.cfm?object=nasm_A...