The Loening C-2 Air Yacht was an amphibious airliner produced in the United States at the end of the 1920s, developed from the OL observation aircraft the firm was producing for the US military."The Loening Cabin Amphibian", 415

Design and development

The C-2 was a two-bay biplane of unconventional design, with a tall, narrow fuselage that nearly filled the interplane gap. The pilot (and sometimes one passenger) sat in an open cockpit at the top of the fuselage, with the engine mounted in front of them. Underneath the fuselage was a long "shoehorn"-style float, that extended forward underneath the engine and propeller. Four to six passengers could be accommodated in a fully enclosed cabin within the fuselage. The main units of the undercarriage retracted into wells in the sides of the fuselage. Stabilising floats were fitted against the undersides of the lower wing. The C-2 was produced in two versions, the C-2C with a

Wright Cyclone Wright Cyclone was the name given to a family of air-cooled radial piston engines designed by the Wright Aeronautical Corporation and used in numerous American aircraft in the 1930s and 1940s. Background The Wright Aeronautical Corporation was ...

engine and the C-2H with a

Pratt & Whitney Hornet The Pratt & Whitney R-1690 Hornet was a widely used American aircraft engine. Developed by Pratt & Whitney, 2,944 were produced from 1926 through 1942. It first flew in 1927. It was a single-row, 9-cylinder air-cooled radial design. Displaceme ...

.Aerofiles Two examples of this latter version were evaluated by the

USMC The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through co ...

as air ambulances under the designation XHL-1.

Operational history

One C-2C, modified from an OL, was flown from

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

Bergen Bergen (), historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipality in Vestland county on the west coast of Norway. , its population is roughly 285,900. Bergen is the second-largest city in Norway. The municipality covers and is on the peninsula o ...

Thor Solberg Thor (; from non, Þórr ) is a prominent god in Germanic paganism. In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred groves and trees, strength, the protection of humankind, hallowing, a ...

in 1935, the first flight from the United States to Norway."Highlights from the exhibitions in The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology, Oslo" Solberg christened the aircraft ''

Leiv Eiriksson Leif Erikson, Leiv Eiriksson, or Leif Ericson, ; Modern Icelandic: ; Norwegian language, Norwegian: ''Leiv Eiriksson'' also known as Leif the Lucky (), was a Norsemen, Norse explorer who is thought to have been the first European to have s ...

'' and used it to roughly re-trace its namesake's journey across the Atlantic (albeit from West-to-East, and by air) via Greenland, Iceland, and the

Faroe Islands The Faroe Islands ( ), or simply the Faroes ( fo, Føroyar ; da, Færøerne ), are a North Atlantic archipelago, island group and an autonomous territory of the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. They are located north-northwest of Scotlan ...

. This aircraft is now preserved in the Norsk Teknisk Museum in

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

. Two C-2Hs were also used by the firm ''Air Ferries'' in the 1930s before the

San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, known locally as the Bay Bridge, is a complex of bridges spanning San Francisco Bay in California. As part of Interstate 80 and the direct road between San Francisco and Oakland, it carries about 260,000 ve ...

was completed to transport passengers between Oakland and San Francisco, cutting a normal forty-minute ferry boat ride to just six minutes. The first commercial flights in Aruba were made in 1934 using a C-2H which had been purchased from

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Variants

* C-2C -

-powered version (23 built) * C-2H - (USN designation XHL)

-powered version (13 built, plus one converted from C-2C.

Operators

Civilian operators

*Kohler Aviation Corporation *Air Ferries Ltd

Military operators

; *

United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through ...

Specifications (C-2H)

Loening_C-1W_Amphibian_3-view_Aero_Digest_April_1928

References

External links

* * * (This article actually describes the C-2's immediate predecessor, the Wasp-engined

Loening C-1 The Loening C-1 Air Yacht was an amphibious airliner produced in the United States at the end of the 1920s. Design The Loening C-1 was based on the OL observation aircraft being developed from the United States Navy (USN)."The Loening Cabin Am ...

.) {{USN hospital aircraft C-2 1920s United States airliners Floatplanes Single-engined tractor aircraft Biplanes Aircraft first flown in 1928