January 18, 1922. Fort McNair, Washington, D.C. "Naval Curtiss bombing plane at War College." View full size. National Photo Company Collection glass negative.
Submitted by Anonymous Tipster on Sun, 04/06/2008 - 11:49pm.
The N-9, upon which that aerial bomb was based, was a biplane, and apparently not a floatplane. Of course that doesn't help identify this one, but I don't think it's the aerial bomb you suspect.
And to me it looks like there's an open cockpit with no windshield in the central fuselage, right up front. might also be a ring mount for a gunner aft of the cockpit.
Submitted by Brooks Moses on Sun, 04/06/2008 - 11:06pm.
That's not a flying bomb. It's got a perfectly good open-top cockpit, over the wing between the engines. See the picture about 1/3 of the way down this page, which shows someone in it (search the page for "A-5890", which is the aircraft number as you can see on the pontoon):
There's some more information about it on this page (again, search the page for A-5890).
Submitted by prcrstn8 on Sun, 04/06/2008 - 9:43pm.
I looked and looked and couldn't see a cockpit anywhere. Google & wikipedia to the rescue - it was a (failed) flying bomb. Not a great chapter in aviation history:
