Curtiss Wright Junior CW-1

The Curtiss Wright Junior was Curtiss-Wright’s Depression-era effort to get into the light plane market. For the price of an automobile, $1495, you could own this two-place, open-cockpit pusher aircraft. Despite the Great Depression, some 270 Curtiss Wright Juniors were sold. This delightful pusher monoplane did have its drawbacks. The unreliable Szekely was prone to shed cylinders and damage the propeller. Operators took caution and wrapped a steel cable around the three cylinders to keep the unpredictable engine from coming apart in the air. The unusual location of the propeller behind the engine and passenger cockpit invited unwitting encounters as passengers disembarked. Finally, in 1932, a well-publicized fatal crash ended all prospects for further sales.

This original aircraft is owned and flown by Aerodrome pilot Brian Coughlin of Cazenovia, NY.  It is equipped with a slightly more modern and far more reliable engine than used on the original design.  It was restored and finished in the colors of the aircraft owned by the Key Brothers (Fred and Algene), who set a world record endurance flight of 27 continuous days airborne using a Curtiss Robin in 1935.

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