AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 44 / 315

Plate 44 of 315 · Great War · Anti-submarine patrol flying boat

Curtiss HS-2L

HS-2L G-CAAC, painted as Curtiss HS-2L G-CAAC ‘La Vigilance’ of Laurentide Air Service, Canada’s first bush aeroplane and the only surviving HS-2L, rebuilt by and displayed at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, Ottawa: a single-engined biplane flying boat with a wooden single-step hull and wide flared sponsons, a Liberty 12 pusher engine mounted between the wings, three-bay wings with king-posts above the upper-wing overhangs, wing-tip floats and a horn-balanced rudder: silver overall, ‘LAURENTIDE AIR SERVICE’ in black serif capitals on both sides of the bow, ‘G-CAAC’ on the hull sides, a black ‘G’ on the rudder and white company sign boards on the king-posts, as photographed at Ottawa (no HS-2L is preserved in a UK museum; shape from period three-view drawings checked against photographs; the display plinth is not modelled).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as Curtiss HS-2L G-CAAC ‘La Vigilance’ of Laurentide Air Service, Canada’s first bush aeroplane and the only surviving HS-2L, rebuilt by and displayed at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, Ottawa: a single-engined biplane flying boat with a wooden single-step hull and wide flared sponsons, a Liberty 12 pusher engine mounted between the wings, three-bay wings with king-posts above the upper-wing overhangs, wing-tip floats and a horn-balanced rudder: silver overall, ‘LAURENTIDE AIR SERVICE’ in black serif capitals on both sides of the bow, ‘G-CAAC’ on the hull sides, a black ‘G’ on the rudder and white company sign boards on the king-posts, as photographed at Ottawa (no HS-2L is preserved in a UK museum; shape from period three-view drawings checked against photographs; the display plinth is not modelled). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (548 KB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (HS-1L & HS-2L); engine, crew and dimensions are for the HS-2L G-CAAC modelled here.

History

The Curtiss HS-2L

When the United States entered the First World War in April 1917, the US Navy needed patrol flying boats to hunt U-boats off its own coast and in European waters. Curtiss already built the twin-engined H-boats, and from them it drew a smaller single-engined boat, the HS, with a wooden hull and its engine mounted between the wings as a pusher. The HS-1 first flew in October 1917, and it was the first aircraft to fly with the new Liberty engine. To carry heavier depth bombs the wings were lengthened by about 12 feet, and this version became the HS-2L, the L standing for Liberty.

Over 1,000 HS boats were built in 1918 and 1919, by Curtiss and by several other firms, Boeing among them. From mid-1918 US Navy crews flew them on anti-submarine patrols from naval air stations on the French coast, and in North America from bases including Halifax and North Sydney in Nova Scotia, which the US Navy set up to guard the convoy routes. The Navy kept the type as a coastal patrol and training boat into the 1920s, and surplus boats went to civil owners as fishing spotters, airliners and air taxis.

In Canada the HS-2L started bush flying. After the war the US Navy left its Nova Scotia boats to the Canadian government, and in 1919 the Laurentide Company, a Quebec paper maker, borrowed two to spot forest fires over its timber. In June 1919 the pilot Stuart Graham flew one of them, G-CAAC ‘La Vigilance’, about 650 miles from Halifax to Lac-à-la-Tortue in Quebec, generally taken as the first bush flight in Canada. For a decade HS-2Ls flew fire patrols, timber surveys, mail and prospectors into the north, until purpose-built bush aircraft replaced them. None is in a UK museum.

This airframe

HS-2L G-CAAC

G-CAACThe airframe modelled

G-CAAC ‘La Vigilance’ was one of the two HS-2Ls lent to the Laurentide Company in 1919 and flew forest-fire patrols over Quebec for Laurentide Air Service. On 2 September 1922 it crashed into Foss Lake in north-western Ontario. Its remains were found in the 1960s and salvaged, and the National Aviation Museum, now the Canada Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa, rebuilt it from 1970 to 1986 using parts of three HS-2Ls. It is the only HS-2L that survives, and it is displayed in Ottawa beside the salvaged original hull. The model shows it as photographs of it there do: silver overall, ‘LAURENTIDE AIR SERVICE’ in black serif capitals along both sides of the bow, ‘G-CAAC’ on the hull sides, a black ‘G’ on the rudder and white sign boards with the company’s name on the king-posts. The name ‘La Vigilance’ does not appear in any photograph of the restored aircraft, so it is left off. Its shape comes from two period three-view drawings checked against the photographs; the display plinth is not modelled.

Where to see one

Not on charge

The only survivor, G-CAAC ‘La Vigilance’, is at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, Ottawa. None is in a UK museum.

All 315 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.