Vought VE-7
1917 fighter/trainer aircraft family by Lewis & Vought
The Vought VE-7 "Bluebird" was an early biplane of the United States. First flying in 1917, it was designed as a two-seat trainer for the United States Army, then adopted by the United States Navy as its first fighter aircraft. In 1922, a VE-7 became the first airplane to take off from an American aircraft carrier. The VE-8 and VE-9 were variants of the VE-7.
Design and development
The Lewis & Vought Corporation was formed just months after the U.S. entered World War I, with the intention of servicing war needs. The company's trainer was patterned after successful European designs; for instance, the engine was a Wright Hispano Suiza of the type used by the French Spads. In practice, the VE-7's performance was much better than usual for a trainer, and the Army ordered 1,000 of an improved design called the VE-8. However, the contract was cancelled due to the end of the war.
However, the Navy was very interested in the VE-7, and received the first machine in May 1920. Production orders soon followed, and in accordance to Navy policy at the time, examples were also built by the Naval Aircraft Factory.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 11, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q1433944. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1917, 1922 and 1920.
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This entry incorporates text from “Vought VE-7” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.