Subject: Bomber series--Keystone LB-8

From: [email-masked]
Date: 8 Jun 94 16:36:16 GMT

>From [email-masked]

In order to test experimental engine installations, the next-to-last 
Keystone LB-7 on the 1929 contract (29-009) was fitted with a pair of 
geared 550 hp Pratt & Whitney R-1860-3 radial engines in place of the 
ungeared R-1690 Hornets.  The gearing ratio of these engines was 2:1.  
The re-engined aircraft was redesignated LB-8.  It was common practice 
during the 1920s and 1930s to assign different designations to 
versions of the same aircraft which differed from each other only in 
the type of engine that powered them.  

The LB-8 was delivered to the USAAC in November of 1929.  Only one of 
these R-1860-powered aircraft was built.  

Specification of the Keystone LB-8: 

Two 550 hp Pratt & Whitney R-1860-3 alr-cooled radial engines.  
Maximum speed 112 mph at sea level.  Weight: 13,250 pounds gross.  
Wingspan 75 feet, length 43 feet 5 inches, height 18 feet 1 inches, 
wing area 1148 square feet.  Two Lewis machine guns in an open 
gunner's position in the nose, two Lewis machine guns in an open 
dorsal gunner's position, one Lewis gun firing downward through an 
opening in the lower fuselage.  

Sources:

  United States Military Aircraft Since 1909, Gordon Swanborough and
  Peter M. Bowers, Smithsonian, 1989.

  American Combat Planes, Ray Wagner, Third Edition, Doubleday, 1982.

  American Warplanes, Bill Gunston

  Jane's Encyclopedia of Aviation

  U.S. Army Aircraft, 1908-1946, James C. Fahey

Joe Baugher		AT&T Bell Laboratories   	
263 Shuman Boulevard 		Naperville, Illinois 60566-7050