The Albree Pigeon-Fraser: The First American Fighter

A seldom-remembered prototype for the first fighter aircraft designed in the United States

Adam Estes
Adam Estes
3/4 view of Albree Pigeon-Fraser s/n 116 at Langley Field, October-1 1917 (National Archives).
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Most people who know about American aviation during the First World War are aware that the US Army Air Service had to rely on its foreign allies for combat aircraft to fight the Germans Jagdgstaffels over the Western Front, but this did not stop American manufacturers from attempting to fulfill the US military’s need for combat-capable fighter aircraft. However, the first fighter aircraft to win a U.S. military contract was fated to become an oddity remembered only by a few aviation historians. Much of what is known about the aircraft is also full of contradictory stories on its failure. This is the story of the Albree Pigeon-Fraser.

The man who would design the first American pursuit plane was George Norman Albree. Born in Boston on February 3, 1888, Albree would graduate from Dartmouth College in 1912 after attending courses at Union College and Amherst College. Even during his student days, however, Albree was fascinated with airplanes, often to the detriment of his academic studies, and he began to build his own designs. The young engineer would soon find a like-minded partner in Roscoe Peregrine Timson, and together they would design and build a few interesting one-off designs after testing their theories on scale gliders. Among of the most distinguishing attributes of Albree’s designs were that instead of wing warping, his aircraft were equipped with ailerons, but his signature feature was the fact that he believed in building airplanes with a gull-wing design and a tail section with fixed vertical and horizontal stabilizers that would be hinged to the rear fuselage that would be adjusted up and down by the pilot to maintain stability in a design known as a “flying tail,” a forerunner to the modern-day stabilator.

The first of these was the Albree-Timson Model U “Harrowplane,” a single-engine floatplane designed by Albree and Timson during the winter of 1913-14 and built in a rented workshop in Swampscott, MA, shipped to nearby Marblehead Harbor for flight testing, and ultimately written off following a hard landing during a test flight with Albree himself at the controls. In October 1914, Albree and Timson drew up plans for a new monoplane, the Model G Scout, which was first flown by test pilot Clifford Webster on July 15, 1915, at Nahant Beach, just south of the Swampscott garage.

The Albree Pigeon Fraser s precursor the Albree –Timson Model G Scout monoplane Massachusetts Aviation Historical Society
The Albree-Timson Model G Scout monoplane, a precursor of the Model SG Pursuit, during a test flight at Nahant Beach, MA. (Massachusetts Aviation Historical Society)

Later Albree and Timson would take the Model G for subsequent flights into September 1915, but the Hendee 7-cylinder rotary engine built in Springfield, MA, and rated for a 50hp output was in fact only producing 35hp, making the aircraft severely underpowered. In October of that year, the U.S. Army expressed interest in having the Model G evaluated at Mineola, NY, and though Albree and Timson were eager to receive a contract, the Model G was irreparably damaged while in transit during a railway accident. By this point, Timson had decided to pursue aviation on his own, and sold the patent rights he had to Albree, who would come into the fold of the Pigeon Hollow Spar Company of East Boston.

Originally founded in 1830, the company had done it all, from masts and beams for ships to theatrical stage sets and powerboat hulls, auto bodies, wing spars for airplanes, and would later build gondolas for the US Navy’s line of B-class blimps used for maritime patrol in WWI. With the company managed by Fred and Roy Pigeon, Albree now had a dedicated factory workshop in which to realize his plans for new airplanes, but though he drew up plans for three new designs, none of these would see the light of day. His fourth design under the Pigeon Hollow Company would go on to become the first fighter design taken under contract by the US military.

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Production line at the Pigeon Hollow Spar Company, building airship gondolas based on airplane fuselages (Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome via WWI Aero, Issue 145)
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A B-class blimp gondola derived from an airplane fuselage being constructed at the Pigeon-Hollow Spar Company in East Boston. (Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome Archives via WWI Aero)

When the US declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, and formally entered the First World War, the United States Army’s Aviation Section was itself a branch of the Army’s Signal Corps and had only 280 airplanes (all trainers that were never designed for combat operations). With reports of the effectiveness of British, French and German fighters over the Western Front, an American design was desired to equip the pilots who would be trained to fly them. It was at this point that Albree offered a design for a monoplane fighter that he and lead draftsman Robert Mansfield had worked on called the Pigeon-Fraser Model SG Pursuit, but which would be popularly known as the Albree Pigeon-Fraser.

The Pigeon-Fraser Model SG was powered by a single 100hp Gnôme rotary engine, had a length of 24 feet with a wingspan of 37 feet, 11 inches, and its single-set of wings featured a flat-bottomed airfoil. Its landing gear also featured a pair of Ackerman landing gear, which were developed by the Ackerman Wheel Company of Cleveland, Ohio, and featured springs for spokes in the wheels to act as shock absorbers. But the most radical feature of the Pigeon-Fraser was Albree’s all-moving tail design.

Intrigued by the company’s proposal, the Army made an order for two prototypes on April 17, 1917, which were issued the Signal Corps (S.C.) serial numbers 116 and 117, with U.S. Army star roundels on the wings. Additionally, the Army ordered a third Model SG that was to only be a single fuselage with no engine with instructions that it be shipped to the Colt Arms Company in Hartford, CT, likely with the intent of mounting and testing a machine gun on the aircraft. This engineless Model SG fuselage was completed and shipped to Hartford in the fall of 1917. By September of that year, SC #116 was brought to Langley Field, VA, for testing, followed by SC #117 in November. However, this is where the accounts begin to differ. In many retellings and publications, the first aircraft was used for wing stress testing, with sandbags being placed on the wing structure to simulate the loads it would bare while in the air, and to discover the point at which the structure would break, leading to the static destruction of the aircraft.

These publications also state that the second prototype was reserved for flight testing, only to crash and burn on its maiden flight, killing the test pilot, with the Signal Corps concluding that the design was flawed and canceling the contract, and with Albree insisting into his elder years that the Pigeon-Fraser was still a sound design and that he was the victim of a government conspiracy.

However, this account is contradicted by the Massachusetts Aviation Historical Society (MAHS), which has compiled much of the surviving information on George Albree and the Pigeon Hollow Spar Company’s involvement in the early history of that state’s aviation sector. According to the information they have saved, which was related by the late William J. Deane, President of the MAHS, after the two aircraft came to Langley Field, they were successfully test flown by test pilots under private contract, including Edward “Eddie” Stinson, who would become the founder of the Stinson Aircraft Company and was the brother of pioneer aviator Katherine Stinson. Yet there were no officially authorized flights made during the Army’s acceptance process, and Albree, who had been told by the War Department that his two planes had been destroyed during the tests without having seen the tests or any documentation thereof for himself, began suspecting that something was amiss. Through his lawyer, Albree made a request that the two prototypes be brought to McCook Field in Dayton, OH for flight and acceptance testing.

In January 1918, SC #116 was stress tested to destruction to determine at which point the wings would break when too much force was exerted. However, no documents or photographs of the tests were made available, and this prompted Albree, who had not been made aware of the tests until after they had happened, to charge that the Aviation Section had destroyed U.S. Government property without cause. That same month, following his protests and some high-level meetings in Washington, D.C. with members of Congress and officials of the War Department, Albree and the Pigeon-Fraser Company were issued a tentative order to build two more prototypes in East Boston. What’s more, Albree was informed that SC #117 was still held in storage at Langley Field. Following this discovery, it was agreed among all parties involved that #117 would be shipped by rail to McCook Field in May 1918, and afterwards it too would be stress-tested to destruction, this time with Albree invited to McCook Field to attend the tests, a briefing, and examine all Army records of the entire testing period for the Model SG, at which Albree was apparently satisfied. The results of the tests were recorded by British-born engineer Lt. Alexander Klemin, USAAS, in the memorandum McCook Field Test Report #119, 7 June 1918: Sand Load Test of Albree Monoplane.

In spite of Albree’s satisfaction with the destructive static test on SC #117 at McCook Field, reports from the Western Front showed that contemporary Allied and German biplane fighters were faster and more maneuverable than the Model SG, and thus it was decided to purchase French Nieuport 28s and SPAD XIIIs and British Sopwith Camels and SE.5As for American Aero Squadrons sent to fight in France. It would not be until WWII some 20 years later that American pilots would fly American-built fighters into combat. 

During the static tests at McCook Field in May 1918, Albree and the Pigeon Hollow Spar Co. were given the option of building an adaptation of the Model SG at Albree’s own expense with the Army offering to loan a 100hp Gnôme rotary engine for the new proposal. Albree accepted the proposal, and work began on what would become the Model PG Pursuit (alternatively called the Model U-2), which was marked as the “Albree No.9” on its rudder. Albree would consider this design to be his “make or break” aircraft to validate his theory for the Flying Tail design he and Roscoe P. Timson had designed nearly ten years prior. The Model PG featured larger ailerons and adjustments to the tail design and would be shipped from East Boston to Hazelhurst Field [later known as Roosevelt Field] in Mineola, NY, the intended destination for the Model G Scout back in 1915.

For two days, the Model PG was put through its paces, with the flight tests going smoothly. Then on Christmas Eve, 1918, a test pilot lost control of the plane during a sharp banking turn and slammed into the ground at high speed, killing him instantly and completely destroying the sole Model PG Pursuit. Albree had witnessed the crash, and after overcoming the initial horror of the event, he stayed on the field during the course of the subsequent investigation and spoke with all the pilots and mechanics who worked on the aircraft. The investigation concluded that the cause was pilot error. Contrary to his preflight instructions, the test pilot on that day had intentionally snap rolled the Model PG to the right but lacked sufficient altitude to recover.

Despite the fact that Albree was cleared of any fault, he walked away from aviation altogether, his designs became a footnote in aviation history, and the Pigeon Hollow Spar Company would leave the aviation industry and go on to continue building products for watercraft well into the 1970s. By that point, however, an elderly G. Norman Albree began corresponding with institutions such as the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum and the National Museum of the United States Air Force to ensure his legacy in the history of aviation, donating his personal files for preservation in their archives.

In an interview quoted in the March 1980 issue of Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, Albree would reflect that the U.S. government had bought his Model SGs “basically to get rid of me because I’d been hounding them and living in the halls down there.” In that same interview, he also remarked on the progress of aviation that he had personally witnessed over the span of his long life, “We never began to foresee what has developed in the last 50 years. It’s just simply remarkable the weight they can carry today.” George Norman Albree died on November 14, 1986, at the age of 98, and is buried in Cambridge, MA.

Albree Pigeon Fraser at the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome
Albree Pigeon-Fraser at the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome [Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome]

The third Pigeon-Fraser Model SG prototype was never completed and was stored in the rafters of the Pigeon Hollow Spar Company’s building, where it remained until November 15, 1961, when it was acquired by vintage aircraft collector, restorer, and pilot Cole Palen, founder of the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome (ORA) in Red Hook, NY. Although Palen recovered the fabric on the Pigeon, the ORA never installed a new engine or flew the aircraft, and today the Albree Pigeon-Fraser is suspended inverted from the ceiling of one of the Aerodrome’s hangars for static aircraft. Additionally, an unfinished flying boat design, the Thomas Pigeon Flying Boat, was also recovered from the Pigeon Hollow Spar Company’s rafters, and this aircraft was later restored and placed on display at the Yanks Air Museum of Chino, California.

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Thomas-Pigeon Flying Boat, which was recovered alongside the last Model SG Pursuit from the rafters of the Pigeon Hollow Spar Company, has since been restored and placed on display at the Yanks Air Museum in Chino, California, complete with a refabricated set of wings and tail surfaces (Adam Estes)
While the Pigeon-Fraser Scout may not have been the most successful prototype in the history of aviation, it is worth remembering the efforts of pioneer aviators such as George Norman Albree and the planes they created in those early days of aviation. More recently, the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome has been interested in acquiring an Ackerman wheel for their Albree Pigeon-Fraser. They already have on in the museum’s collection but have asked us to mention that they are looking to acquire a second wheel to complete the pair.
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Suspended inverted in one of Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome’s hangars is the last surviving Albree Pigeon-Fraser (Nigel Hitchman)

The author would like to extend special thanks to Tom Polapink of the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome in contributing valuable archival photos and information to the research for this article.

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Raised in Fullerton, California, Adam has earned a Bachelor's degree in History and is now pursuing a Master's in the same field. Fascinated by aviation history from a young age, he has visited numerous air museums across the United States, including the National Air and Space Museum and the San Diego Air and Space Museum. He volunteers at the Planes of Fame Air Museum in Chino as a docent and researcher, gaining hands-on experience with aircraft maintenance. Known for his encyclopedic knowledge of aviation history, he is particularly interested in the stories of individual aircraft and their postwar journeys. Active in online aviation communities, he shares his work widely and seeks further opportunities in the field.
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