The Curtiss 18T, unofficially known as the Wasp and by the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

as the Kirkham, was an early American

triplane A triplane is a fixed-wing aircraft equipped with three vertically stacked wing planes. Tailplanes and canard foreplanes are not normally included in this count, although they occasionally are. Design principles The triplane arrangement m ...

fighter aircraft designed by

Curtiss Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company (1909 – 1929) was an American aircraft manufacturer originally founded by Glenn Hammond Curtiss and Augustus Moore Herring in Hammondsport, New York. After significant commercial success in its first decade ...

for the US Navy.

Design and development

The Curtiss 18T was intended to protect bombing aircraft over

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

, and a primary requisite for this job was speed. Speed was not the triplane's only salient feature: an 18T-2 set a new

altitude Altitude or height (also sometimes known as depth) is a distance measurement, usually in the vertical or "up" direction, between a reference datum and a point or object. The exact definition and reference datum varies according to the context ...

record in 1919 of . The streamlined and very "clean" fuselage contributed to the aircraft's performance. The basic construction was based on cross-laminated strips of wood veneer formed on a mold and attached to the inner structure. The technique was a refinement of that used on the big Curtiss flying boats."Curtiss # to J."
''aerofiles.com.'' Retrieved: 13 January 2011.

Operational history

Flown by Roland Rholfs, the 18T achieved a world speed record of in August 1918 carrying a full military load of . The Model 18T-2 was an improved version of its predecessor, with 50 additional

horsepower Horsepower (hp) is a unit of measurement of power, or the rate at which work is done, usually in reference to the output of engines or motors. There are many different standards and types of horsepower. Two common definitions used today are t ...

. The wings of the new model were swept back. It was also longer with a larger two-bay wing, though its operational ceiling was lower. After

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, it was employed as a racing plane: an 18T-2 nearly won the Curtiss Marine Trophy Race in 1922 (limited to U.S. Navy pilots), but the

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...

, Lt. Sanderson ran out of fuel just before the finish line. Curtiss Engineering followed the Model 18T with the Model 18B, unofficially known as the "Hornet", built to otherwise similar specifications. Curtiss 18T-1

Rear view of man in a Curtiss biplane 18-B cockpit on field, circa 1917-1919 (TRANSPORT 1105)

Variants

;Model 18T or 18T-1: Two-seat fighter

with single-bay wings, powered by a

Curtiss K-12 The Curtiss K-12 was a milestone in the development of liquid-cooled aircraft engines and was regarded as one of the most advanced in the world for its time. Design and development Designed by Charles B. Kirkham and first tested in 1916, the K ...

piston engine. Referred to by the US Navy as the "Kirkham". Originally designated 18T, the type was redesignated the 18T-1 when the prototype was modified to a new configuration designated 18T-2 (see below). ;Model 18T-2: 18T with longer-span two-bay wings. Could be fitted with floatplane or landplane landing gear. ;Model 18B: Biplane fighter version, known unofficially as the "Hornet". Sole flying prototype of Curtiss 18B, USAAS ''40058'', 'P-86', crashed early in flight trials at

McCook Field McCook Field was an airfield and aviation experimentation station in Dayton, Ohio, United States. It was operated by the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps and its successor the United States Army Air Service from 1917 to 1927. It was named f ...

Dayton, Ohio Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater D ...

, summer 1919. Type not ordered into production. One non-flying prototype also delivered for static testing.Green, William, and Swanborough, Gordon, "Fighter A To Z", ''Air International'', Bromley, Kent, UK, February 1976, Volume 10, Number 2, page 98.

Operators

; *

Specifications (18T-1 Wasp)

Notes

Bibliography

* Angelucci, Enzo and Peter Bowers. ''The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft from 1917 to the Present''. New York: Orion Books, 1985. . * Bowers, Peter M. ''Curtiss Aircraft 1907–1947''. London: Putnam, 1979. .
"The Curtiss Model 18-T Triplane."
''

Flight Flight or flying is the process by which an object moves through a space without contacting any planetary surface, either within an atmosphere (i.e. air flight or aviation) or through the vacuum of outer space (i.e. spaceflight). This can be a ...

'', Volume XI, Issue 22, No. 544, 29 May 1919, pp. 698–700.
"The Curtiss Model 18-B Biplane."
Volume XI, Issue 28, No. 550, 10 July 1919, pp. 902–904. * Green, William and Gordon Swanborough. ''The Complete Book of Fighters.'' New York: Salamander, 1994. . *

External links

{{Curtiss aircraft 1910s United States fighter aircraft 18 Triplanes Single-engined tractor aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1918