Crop dusters to bombers

Thomas Huff and Elliot Daland founded Ogdensburg Aeroway in 1920, soon renaming it Huff-Daland. Based in Bristol, Pennsylvania, it made its name with agricultural aircraft and then with Army bombers. From 1924 its chief designer was a young James McDonnell. Huff left in 1926, the bankers Hayden, Stone and Co. bought in with a million dollars of capital, and the company became Keystone.

The last biplane bombers

Keystone’s twin-engined biplanes, the LB-5, LB-6 and B-3 to B-6, were the US Army’s standard bombers around 1930: about 200 of the family were built, and the B-3A served until 1940. They were the last biplane bombers the Army flew, made obsolete within a few years by all-metal monoplanes. A 1932 monoplane bomber proposal was withdrawn, and Martin’s B-10 took the contract. Tragedy struck in 1927, when the Keystone Pathfinder American Legion crashed days before an Orteig Prize transatlantic attempt, killing Noel Davis and Stanton Wooster.

The men who stayed behind

In 1928 Keystone merged with Loening, and in 1929 Curtiss-Wright took it over and closed the Loening plant on New York’s East River. Leroy Grumman, Jake Swirbul and William Schwendler would not move to Pennsylvania and founded Grumman instead. Keystone stopped production in 1932, and Fleetwings bought the plant in 1934.

المصانع

• Bristol works · Bristol, Pennsylvania — Sold to Fleetwings in 1934
• Keystone-Loening East River plant · New York City — Closed by Curtiss-Wright in 1929

الناس

• Thomas Huff · co-founder — Left in 1926
• James McDonnell · chief designer from 1924
• Leroy Grumman · Loening manager — Left rather than move to Bristol; founded Grumman in 1930