27 April 1911: At Fort Sam Houston, Texas, the Aeronautical Division of the Signal Corps, United States Army, accepted its second airplane, a Curtiss Model D Type IV. The airplane was built by Glenn H. Curtiss’ Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company at Hammondsport, New York. It was known as a “Curtiss Pusher”. It was an early United States pusher aircraft with the engine and propeller behind the pilot’s seat. It was among the first aircraft in the world to be built in any quantity, all of which were produced by Curtiss during an era of trial-and-error development and equally important parallel technical development in internal combustion engine technologies.
The aircraft was a canard configuration with elevators mounted in front. It had tricycle landing gear. The airframe was primarily spruce and ash, with flying surfaces covered with doped fabric. It was easily disassembled for transport on Army wagons.
Like all Curtiss designs, the aircraft used ailerons, which first existed on a Curtiss-designed airframe as quadruple “wing-tip” ailerons on the 1908 June Bug to control rolling in flight, thus avoiding the use of the Wright brothers’ patented wing warping technology.
The Model D Type IV had a length of 29 feet, 3 inches (8.915 meters) with a wingspan of 38 feet, 3 inches (11.659 meters), and a height of 7 feet, 10 inches (2.388 meters). Its empty weight was 700 pounds (317.5 kilograms) and loaded weight was 1,300 pounds (589.7 kilograms).
The engine was a “Curtiss Vee,” an air-cooled, normally-aspirated, 268.336-cubic-inch displacement (4.397 liter) Curtiss Model B-8 90° V-8 engine, producing 40 horsepower at 1,800 r.p.m. The Model B-8 was 29½ inches (0.75 meters) long, 19 inches (0.48 meters) high and 17 inches (0.43 meters) wide. It weighed approximately 150 pounds (68 kilograms). The engine drove a two-bladed, fixed-pitch wooden propeller in pusher configuration.
The airplane’s top speed was 60 miles per hour (96.6 kilometers per hour). Endurance was 2½ hours.
The Signal Corps assigned serial number S.C. No. 2 to the Curtiss. Intended as a trainer, it was in service until 1914 when it was scrapped.”
To see the Curtiss Pusher in flight click here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJ8JrcY-TIs
Information by Bryan R. Swopes, thisdayinaviationhistory.com and Wikipedia