Vought VE-7
The Vought VE -7 " Bluebird" was an early American two-seat biplane in 1917 and served first as a training aircraft. The VE -7 was later the first American fighter aircraft of the U.S. Navy, which took off from an aircraft carrier in 1922.
History
The Lewis & Vought Company was founded on 1 June 1917. The VE -7 was based on successful European designed aircraft designs. The engine was a 180 -hp Wright -Hispano -Suiza E3, as he used came from the French Spad. In practice, the performance of the VE -7 were much higher than actually needed for training aircraft and comparable to those of the best fighters. The first pre-series of the VE -7 were delivered in the spring of 1918 to the U.S. Army. The U.S. Army ordered 1,000 machines in the enlarged variant SU -8. This order, however, was terminated at the end of the war.
The VE -7 was at least met with the U.S. Navy on interest, so got this in May 1920 the first machine. Series production took place shortly thereafter. This job was too big for Vought and so the Naval Aircraft Factory made also machines. A total of 128 were built VE -7.
The hunting version has been called VE -7S and was a single-seater with a propellersynchronierten Vickers 7.62mm machine gun. Some machines of the type VE- 7SF had inflatable float that should hold at ditching the plane afloat.
The VE -7 aircraft were assigned to the Navy fighter squadrons VF -1 and VF -2. On October 17, 1922 Lt. Virgil C. Griffin scored the first launch from the deck of the new aircraft carrier USS Langley. The last three machines were withdrawn in 1927 by the Langley and 1928 finally retired. An improved variant of the VE- 7/9 was developed in 1922 UO -1.