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"Like a Wooden Shoe"

Exhibits & Collections > "Like a Wooden Shoe"

It is an aircraft that is closer to being in its element than most of those on display in the museum, its wooden hull positioned on the replica of a seaplane ramp along a sandy beach in the recently opened World War I exhibit, the subtle sound of seagulls and lapping waves audible to visitors that approach it. Behind the façade is a fascinating history that is all too real for an aircraft that represents an important period in naval aviation history and the one of the museum’s first acquisitions following its opening in June 1963.

During the first decade of naval aviation’s existence, the name Glenn Curtiss was synonymous with the aircraft that took the first naval aviators into the air. On the waters of Lake Keuka in his native Hammondsport, New York, the aircraft manufacturer tested the Navy’s earliest seaplanes, which evolved from open-cockpit, single-pontoon designs to flying boats that at first were essentially hulls with wings. The first successful one built at Hammondsport was The Flying Fish, interesting in that the elevator was positioned on the nose, followed by the “Freak Boat” and Tadpole. The Type C (later redesignated AB) entered service with the Navy in 1913, and the following year one made history in the skies over Veracruz, when it became the first aircraft in the history of the United States military to fly a combat mission, performing reconnaissance over the city and searching for mines in the harbor during the insurrection in the Mexican city. They were also used in early tests of airplane catapults at the Washington Navy Yard and Pensacola. 

The C/AB formed the basis for the Model F, which was Curtiss’ first mass-produced flying boat with deliveries to the Navy and Army, and also the burgeoning civilian market. Some 144 F Boats entered service with the Navy and were employed primarily as trainers, particularly following America’s entry into World War I in April 1917. With side-by-side seating in a hull that many an instructor and student likened to a wooden shoe, the F Boats featured pusher engines mounted behind and above the pilots. The wings of early and later versions of the aircraft differed in that some incorporated upper and lower wings of the same length with ailerons mounted in between and others featured longer upper wings with inset ailerons. Among those who flew them was enlisted pilot Meinard A. Schur, who received instruction in F Boats at NAS Pensacola, where he performed his first solo in the type and completed instruction in navigation, spiral turns and landings from altitudes from 500 to 6,500 ft. Later, as an instructor at NAS San Diego, Calif., his flights became more varied, with photographic hops, practicing the release of pigeons [the primary means of air to ground communication of the day], a rescue mission to a crashed N-9, and “Looking for Body foot of 26th St.” entered on the “Character of Flight” section of his log book maintained in the Emil Buehler Naval Aviation Library.

The success of the F Boat led to interest on the part of the Navy in the procurement of a more advanced version of the type, which was appropriately designated “MF” for Modernized F. Design work commenced at Curtiss’ Port Washington, Long Island. Plant in 1917, and the resulting MF Boat proved larger than its predecessor, most notably in its wing span and weight. Benefiting from the engineering progress made in the design of flying boat hulls, the MF featured sponsons, projections on each side of the hull that improved the aircraft’s stability on the water. In July 1918, a Navy trial board consisting of Lieutenant Commander A.C. Read and Lieutenants David H. McCulloch, Elmer F. Stone, USCG, and James L. Breese put one of the first MF Boats through its paces. A more distinguished group would have been difficult to assemble for all four men would participate in the Navy’s May 1919 effort to fly the Atlantic, with Read, Stone [the Coast Guard’s first aviator] and Breese members of the crew of the NC-4 that successfully completed the flight. Their report, written on 5 September 1918, lauded the MF Boat’s structural soundness and control on the water, especially when power was added to the engine. “The boat land[s] with no shock whatever, even when ‘pan-caked’ from 8 feet,” it stated. “There is no tendency to porpoise or nose over on landings and get-aways.” In the air, the aircraft was found to be satisfactory in control and stability, any negative tendencies deemed fixable with the enlargement of the vertical stabilizer, a step that would make the type “preferable [to the F Boat], owing to the improved sea-qualities…”