Wright Model K

The Wright Model K was a prototype floatplane that the Wright Company built for a March 1915 U.S. Navy invitation to fourteen manufacturers for nine seaplanes, and sold to the Navy as AH-23, later A51. It was a three-bay unstaggered biplane with tandem open cockpits for pilot and observer, a six-cylinder 60 horsepower engine in the nose and two long pontoon floats. The Navy specification required tractor propellers and ailerons, both departures for Wright, and the Model K was the first Wright design to use ailerons instead of wing warping and the first with tractor propellers, still driven by chain. It was also the last to keep the wing and engine arrangement used on every Wright aircraft since the first Flyer, and the last to use the distinctive bent-end propellers. No production order followed, the single Model K was removed from service in February 1917, and it was the last sale by the company to the U.S. military.