The
Boeing
The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and ...
XP-7 was a
prototype United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
biplane
A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...
fighter of the 1920s.
Development and design
The XP-7 started life as the last
Boeing Model 15
The Boeing Model 15 was a United States single-seat open-cockpit biplane fighter aircraft of the 1920s, manufactured by the Boeing company. The Model 15 saw service with the United States Army Air Service (as the PW-9 series) and with the Unite ...
(PW-9D), serial 28-41. It was then adapted to mount the 600 hp Curtiss
V-1570 Conqueror engine. Labelled by Boeing as their Model 93, the XP-7's nose was shorter and deeper than that of the standard PW-9, and the craft was 75 pounds lighter overall.
It first flew in September 1928 and did well, with a 17 mph speed increase over the PW-9. However, despite a proposal to build an additional four P-7s, the design was at the very limits of its capabilities and somewhat outdated even by the time of its first flight. At the end of testing, the Conqueror engine was removed and the aircraft converted back into a PW-9D.
Operators
;
*
United States Army Air Corps
The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) was the aerial warfare service component of the United States Army between 1926 and 1941. After World War I, as early aviation became an increasingly important part of modern warfare, a philosophical ri ...
Specifications
References
;Bibliography
*
* Lloyd S. Jones, ''U.S. Fighters'' (Aero Publishers, Inc., 1975) pp. 32–33
{{USAF fighters
Boeing P-07
P-07
Single-engined tractor aircraft
Biplanes