Wright-Bellanca WB-2

The Wright-Bellanca WB-2 was a high-wing monoplane designed by Giuseppe Mario Bellanca, first for Wright Aeronautical and then for the Columbia Aircraft company. Built of fabric-covered steel tube and powered by a Wright Whirlwind J-5 engine, it followed the all-wood WB-1 and was meant to show off the new engine. Only one was built. It won the efficiency events at the 1926 National Air Races, and in April 1927 Clarence Chamberlin and Bert Acosta kept it aloft for more than 51 hours, a world endurance record. Charles Lindbergh tried to buy it for his Paris flight, but a dispute over who would choose the crew sent him to Ryan instead. Named Columbia, it carried Chamberlin and Charles Levine from New York to Eisleben, Germany, in June 1927, and later flew as Maple Leaf, including a 1930 crossing from Canada to England. It was destroyed in a hangar fire at the Bellanca factory in New Castle, Delaware, in January 1934.