Aeromarine 40

History of Aeromarine 40

The Aeromarine 40 (or simply "Aeromarine 40") is a two-seater flying boat trainer in service with the United States Navy. The aircraft was built by the Aeromarine Plane and Motor Company in Keyport, NJ, and has made a name for itself by supplying the U.S. Navy with the first Aeromarine Type 39 carrier-based aircraft, described elsewhere on this page.

While the Type 39 can be used as both a land aircraft and an airship (although the landing gear must be modified for each mission), the Type 40 is a dedicated airship.

The design was conventional for the time and consisted of a contoured boat-like fuselage attached to a box-shaped fuselage on which was mounted a large unequal span biplane wing configuration. Individual pontoons are attached as cantilever pontoons, one for each lower wing assembly. The upper and lower wing assemblies are connected by parallel struts, forming two compartments and attaching appropriate cables.

Students and instructors sit side by side in the open-air cockpit behind the nose and in front of the wing structure. From this position, visibility is excellent, as her forward view is protected by two single-curved windshields. The rear wing is adorned with a traditional large-area vertical stabilizer and a horizontal stabilizer system with rounded edges. The engines were placed in a strut configuration supporting the upper and lower wing assemblies at the midspan.

Located directly above and aft of the pilot, this engine uses a two-bladed thruster propeller system and is powered by a Curtiss OXX-6 series water-cooled V-8 rated at about 100 hp (some late 40s models were the human known). power to install a Hispano brand motor in its place). The performance of this thruster assembly allows speeds of up to 71 mph with a service ceiling of nearly 1,900 feet.

Battery life is about 4.5 hours.

In 1918, the US Navy initially ordered 200 Type 40s. The end of the November war meant the end of production contracts, with only 50 Model 40s remaining in production. The Type 40 remained in service only with the U.S. Navy in the postwar world, including America's early and fascinating interwar years. Overall, their operational use proved the airframe to be too fragile to withstand the continual rigours of water service, and these results contributed to future American airship designs.

The Aeromarine Model 40 was further developed into the Model 41, and some existing Model 40s were upgraded to this newer design.

Specification

Basic

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Performance

Performance

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