This article is about a military flying boat built by the Wright Company in 1913. For the development of the Wright Model B proposed for manufacture by the Burgess Company as the Model G, see Wright Model B.
The Wright Model G Aeroboat was a flying boat built in small numbers by the Wright Company in 1913. It represented an unsuccessful attempt by Wright to compete with the ubiquitous Curtiss Model F.[1][2] One example was evaluated for U.S. Navy service,[3][4] and allocated a naval serial number, but this did not lead to a production order. The Model G was the first aircraft to be fitted with a T-tail.[5]
The Model G was a three-bay unstaggered biplane flying boat with equal-span wings.[6] The pilot and a single passenger sat side-by-side in an open cockpit in the hull.[7] A piston engine was mounted behind the cockpit, in the interplane gap, which powered two two-bladed pusher propellers via chain drives.[7] Small stabilizer floats were mounted under the wings, initially at mid-span,[7] but later moved to the wingtips.[5] The horizontal stabilizer was originally mounted in a cruciform position on the fins, but later moved above them to create the first T-tail fitted to an aircraft.[5] The Model G was originally fitted with a system of control levers, similar to earlier Wright designs, but the last ones built had control wheels that were emerging as the standard for aircraft control.[2] The hull was built of metal.[7]
Development
The Wright Company had previously marketed seaplanes in the form of the Wright Model C-Hfloatplane. However, this machine's performance both in the air and on the water had proved disappointing.[8] At the same time, rival firm Curtiss had achieved considerable success with their Model F flying boat.[1][2] After an informal expression of interest from the U.S. Navy in evaluating a Wright flying boat, Orville Wright set designer Grover Loening to the task of designing the aircraft.[5] It flew for the first time in 1913, and was test-flown by Orville, Loening, and Oscar Brindley on the Great Miami River.[8]
Other than naval use, the Wright Company marketed it for recreational flying, and also hoped to sell it as a mailplane for use in Alaska and coastal areas.[8]
The U.S. Navy purchased the first Model G built[10] and assigned it the serial AH-19.[11] It was tested for the Navy by Harry Atwood on Lake Erie in May 1914, and then by Lt. Harry Maxfield.[10] Maxfield advised against purchasing the type,[10] and no further interest by the Navy ensued.[10][11][3]
Wright sold at least two other Model Gs: one to Atwood, and another to Ernie Hall.[10] Captain J. William Hazelton of the New York National Guard also owned a "Wright-type flying boat" around this time, which might have been a Model G.[10] He offered it to the Army for use in support of the Mexican Revolution, but the offer was not taken up.[10]
On August 20, 1914, Orville Wright and passenger Lt. Kenneth Whiting narrowly escaped drowning when a Model G piloted by Wright crashed into the Great Miami River after one of its wings failed in flight.[1]
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