On June 07, 1912 an experiment was performed, again involving the Wright brothers. an aircraft Wright Model B, in tests by the United States Army, was used to test a prototype of a weapon manufactured by Lewis Gun.
In command was the Lieutenant Roy Carrington Kirtland, responsible for piloting the plane that was equipped with a special weapon, designed by Colonel Isaac N. Lewis. THE Captain Charles deForest Chandler was the first person to fire a machine gun mounted on an aircraft, during this flight performed in College Park, Maryland.
The captain used an air-cooled, gas-operated, magazine-fed prototype Lewis machine gun capable of firing 500 to 600 rounds per minute. Later, the same armament, with updates and using the .30-06 Springfield caliber, equipped the Sopwith Camel fighter, manufactured from 1916 onwards for the First World War.
According to the military at the time, the machine gun allowed reaching targets 805 meters away, with an average speed of 744 m/s. However, in its early years it depended on manual operation.
The US Army gave up buying the Model B for the performance of the plane, but the Lewis machine gun was successful in World War I, in use by the British military.
The Model B was also responsible for the first bomb dropped from an aircraft, in 1911, and in the same year it already exchanged radio messages in flight, parachute jumps and carried out military reconnaissance missions, always in tests for the US Army.
The Model B was a plane presented by the Wright brothers as a commercial product, updated from the Model A that theoretically flew for the first time in 1903. It incorporated another structure in the tail, with an active elevator, and located after the double rudder.
With this plane the Wright brothers tried a purchase contract on the part of the US Army. United States, who wanted to begin studies with the aircraft for use in combat.
The plane had room for a pilot and enger right in front, with a four-cylinder engine and 42 horsepower located on the right wing, and two propellers positioned after the trailing edge of each wing. The Model B's top speed was 72 km/h.
