Subject: Bomber series--Keystone LB-9

From: [email-masked]
Date: 8 Jun 94 16:36:19 GMT

>From [email-masked]

The last Keystone LB-7 on the 1929 contract (29-010) was completed as 
the LB-9.  The LB-9 differed from the LB-7 in being powered by a pair 
of geared 575 hp Wright R-1750 Cyclone radial engines in place of the 
Pratt and Whitney Hornets of the production LB-7.  The gearing ratio 
was 1.58:1.  It was delivered in November of 1929.  

The purpose of this engine installation was purely experimental, and 
only one of these R-1750-powered LB-7 aircraft was built.  

Specification of the Keystone LB-8: 

Two 575 hp Wright R-1750 Cyclone alr-cooled radial engines.  Maximum 
speed 118 mph at sea level.  Weight: 13,100 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