Packard-Le Peré LUSAC-11

LUSAC-11
The LUSAC-11 which broke the World altitude record in 1920 and 1921
Role	Fighter aircraft
National origin	United States of America
Manufacturer	Engineering Division/Packard
Designer	Georges Lepère
First flight	15 May 1918
Primary user	United States Army Air Service
Number built	30
Developed into	Waterman 3-L-400

The LUSAC-11 (Lepère United States Army Combat) was an early American two-seat fighter aircraft. It was a French design, commissioned and built in the United States during World War I and ordered in large numbers by the United States Army Air Corps, but these were cancelled at the end of the war and only thirty were built. The type was used for experimental purposes, setting several altitude records during the 1920s.

When the U.S. entered World War I, the Signal Corps had just 55 aircraft, none fit for combat. The American Expeditionary Force was equipped with French types, and the LUSAC was part of a plan to build French designs in the U.S.

Georges Lepère, a member of the French Aeronautical Mission to the United States, was tasked by the Engineering Division of the United States Army Air Service to design a two-seat escort fighter. His design was a two-bay biplane with upper and lower wings of equal span with forward stagger. It was of wood and fabric construction, with the fuselage consisting of a wooden box girder with plywood covering. It was powered by a 425 hp (317 kW) Liberty L-12 engine cooled by a radiator faired into the upper wing. Armament was two .30 inch (7.62 mm) machine guns synchronized to fire through the propeller, with two Lewis guns flexibly mounted on a Scarff ring at the observer's cockpit.

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