In 1933, with the airship Macon newly in operational service, the Navy needed a small utility airplane for the dirigible's heavier-than-air unit. The existing Consolidated N2Y-1 airplanes were no longer adequate for the purpose, so the Bureau of Aeronautics searched the civilian aircraft market for a suitable type, one with higher performance than the N2Y-1 and small enough to enter the airship's hangar. In early January 1934 a contract was issued to the Waco Aircraft Company for two modified examples of its 3-seat UBF biplane. Delivered a few months later, these two airplanes (Bureau #s 9521 and 9522) were designated XJW-1. They were fitted with skyhooks over their upper wing, allowing launching and recovery from Macon while she was in flight.
Both planes served with Macon in the utility and training role. Neither was on board the airship when she crashed off the California coast on 12 February 1935 and both were subsequently reassigned East Coast Naval Air Stations, one to Lakehurst, New Jersey, and the other to Anacostia, in Washington, D.C. Their skyhooks were removed and the two planes served for many more years as conventional landplanes. One was surveyed in March 1938, while NAS Anacostia's XJW-1 was surveyed in June 1942.
XJW-1 characteristics:
This page features our only views of Waco XJW-1 utility airplanes.
If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions." |
Click on the small photograph to prompt a larger view of the same image.
NOTES:
If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions." |
Page made 13 October 2002
Coding updated 7 May 2009