The

Naval Aircraft Factory The Naval Aircraft Factory (NAF) was established by the United States Navy in 1918 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was created to help solve aircraft supply issues which the United States Department of the Navy, Navy Department faced upon the ...

(NAF) SA was one of several new NAF designs during 1918, their first year of operation. It was a small aircraft designed to be launched from a platform erected on a

battleship A battleship is a large, heavily naval armour, armored warship with a main battery consisting of large naval gun, guns, designed to serve as a capital ship. From their advent in the late 1880s, battleships were among the largest and most form ...

. The aircraft was to act as an observer, or spotter, to extend the visual range of the ship. SA stood for Ship's Airplane.

Design

Of mainly wooden construction, the aircraft's fuselage consisted of an open wooden frame. Aft of the wing, this was of metal with a triangular cross-section, and supported a conventional tailplane with slab

elevators An elevator (American English) or lift (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) is a machine that vertically transports people or freight between levels. They are typically powered by electric motors that drive tracti ...

and a low, extended rudder. The wooden monoplane wing was shoulder mounted and wire braced, with roll controlled by

wing warping Wing warping was an early system for lateral (roll) control of a fixed-wing aircraft or kite. The technique, used and patented by the Wright brothers, consisted of a system of pulleys and cables to twist the trailing edges of the wings in opposit ...

rather by the by then conventional

ailerons An aileron (French for "little wing" or "fin") is a hinged flight control surface usually forming part of the trailing edge of each wing of a fixed-wing aircraft. Ailerons are used in pairs to control the aircraft in roll (or movement around ...

. The undercarriage was of

tailwheel Conventional landing gear, or tailwheel-type landing gear, is an aircraft undercarriage consisting of two main wheels forward of the center of gravity and a small wheel or skid to support the tail.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Term ...

type with a

longeron In engineering, a longeron or stringer is a load-bearing component of a framework. The term is commonly used in connection with aircraft fuselages and automobile chassis. Longerons are used in conjunction with stringers to form structural fram ...

fashioned as a skid beside each main wheel. The pilot sat in the fuselage between the wings. The major sections were designed to be stored aboard the ship, and to be quickly assembled for flight. This design was critiqued by Peter M. Bowers who noted its resemblance to

Santos-Dumont Demoiselle The Santos-Dumont ''Demoiselle'' is a series of aircraft built in France by the Brazilian aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont. They were light-weight monoplanes with a wire-braced wing mounted above an open-framework fuselage built from bamb ...

designs and its possible influence on the

Aeronca C-2 The Aeronca C-2 is an American light monoplane designed by Jean A. Roche and built by Aeronca Aircraft. Development Roche Monoplane Jean A. Roche was a U.S. Army engineer at McCook Field airfield in Dayton, Ohio. Roche developed an aircraft ...

and C-3. Bowers also pointed out that the aircraft would not have been able to land back on the ship, and, with no radio, would not be able to report its findings anyway.

Variants

Four prototypes were built, in two versions: ; SA-1 : Original version. Two built, registered BuNo A5570 and A5571 ; SA-2 : Fabric-covered fuselage with struts supporting the wings, which had a slightly greater span. One may have had the wing-warping replaced by ailerons. Registered BuNo A5572 and A5573.

Operations

The aircraft were tested by the Navy, but there is no record of them being operated from a ship or used operationally. No orders were placed for further examples, and the fates of the prototypes are not recorded.

Specifications (SA-1)

References

{{Naval Aircraft Factory aircraft SA Aircraft first flown in 1918 Single-engined piston aircraft