Wright Model F

The Wright Model F was a prototype military aeroplane that the Wright Company built for the U.S. Army in 1914 to a Signal Corps reconnaissance specification, and the first Wright design to have a fuselage. Designed by Grover Loening, it was a three-bay unstaggered biplane with a conventional tail and a water-cooled six-cylinder Austro-Daimler engine of 90 horsepower in the nose, driving two pusher propellers through chain drives. Metal armour under the fuselage and poor performance earned it the nickname Tin Cow. A series of revisions left it a year late and delivered at a loss, and Loening had left the company by the time the Army accepted it in March 1915 as serial 39. Testers called it uncontrollable on the ground and out of date, and after only seven flights it was withdrawn two months later with all the Army other pusher aircraft. Not to be confused with the Burgess-Wright Model F, a licence-built Model B.