Air Force Museum
LUSAC 11
The LUSAC 11—Lepère United States Army Combat—grew from a World War I plan for an American two-seat fighter. The war ended before mass production, but the design became a useful test and record aircraft. Modified LUSACs investigated engines, superchargers, altitude, and speed. In 1920, Rudolph Schroeder flew a turbo-supercharged example above 33,000 feet. The aircraft shows how an unfinished procurement program can become a research platform when its original mission disappears.
In depth
History & service
Designed in 1917 by Capt. Georges LePere, a French aeronautical engineer working for the U.S. Army Air Service, the LUSAC 11 was the result of efforts to get an American built fighter into combat as soon as possible. The acronym "LUSAC" stood for LePere United States Army Combat. LePere designed the LUSAC 11 to be a combination fighter, light bomber and reconnaissance aircraft that carried a pilot and an observer/gunner.
Capt. LePere, along with several other French aviation engineers, worked on the design at the Packard Motor Car Co. of Detroit, Mich. Packard provided design and fabrication space and additional engineers, and the first prototype was completed in April 1918. After the three prototypes received generally favorable reviews from test pilots at Wilbur Wright Field, Ohio, the Bureau of Aircraft Production planned to order as many as 3,525 LUSAC 11s.
At war's end in November 1918, however, the Bureau cancelled its contracts, and only 28 production aircraft were built (with only seven of these built before the Armistice, none saw combat). The aircraft continued to fly in the Air Service, and specially modified LUSAC 11 became famous by setting a number of altitude records at Wright Field in the early 1920s.
Details that tell the story
Two-seat American combat design · Developed during World War I · Used after the war for speed and altitude research · Supported early turbo-supercharger testing
A new invention becomes a public world
Before airplanes became routine transport, public demonstrations helped establish what they could do. Exhibition flights, races, and crossings placed fragile machines before crowds, officials, and potential customers. The audience saw courage and spectacle. Behind the spectacle were less visible questions about reliable engines, controllable wings, suitable landing grounds, and how to recover when the weather changed.
Different configurations competed at the same time. Some designers placed the propeller behind the pilot; others put it at the front. Biplanes used bracing to make light structures sufficiently rigid. Monoplanes reduced some of that external framework but posed their own structural and handling problems. Balloons and dirigibles remained part of the same aviation world, offering capabilities that early airplanes could not simply replace.
The famous firsts matter, but so does the period immediately after them. Flight schools, licensed manufacture, military trials, mechanics, and spare parts carried an invention outward. An aircraft could influence aviation through the pilots trained on it or the designs adapted from it, even after its own performance became outdated. The machines in Washington and Dayton preserve different points along that process. Their differences show how quickly an experimental achievement became an international industry, and how many people had to turn a remarkable flight into a repeatable service.
