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In March 1925, Bellanca joined the Wright Aeronautical Corporation (Orville Wright of the Wright Brothers) of Paterson, N.J. It was suggested that he (Bellanca) design a machine to win the Orteig Prize for the first plane to fly nonstop between New York and Paris. At that time Wright Aeronautical was seeking an aircraft to demonstrate its remarkable new 200-hp J-4 Whirlwind engine. The result, completed in the fall of 1925, was the Wright-Bellanca WB-1. The WB-1 was wrecked in a landing accident, Bellanca developed what was to become the iconic WB-2, powered by a 220-hp J-5 Whirlwind Later, when Wright quit the airplane business to concentrate on engines, Bellanca entered into an uneasy partnership with millionaire New York scrap dealer Charles Levine, who founded the Columbia Aircraft Corporation after acquiring the WB-2. Meanwhile, first Wright and then Levine turned down offers from Charles Lindbergh to buy the WB-2 for his solo transatlantic attempt. Lindbergh later wrote admiringly of the WB-2: "In a Bellanca filled with fuel tanks I could fly on all night, like the moon. With the engine throttled down it could stay aloft for days." The rest is history, Lindbergh went on to Paris winning the Orteig prize. The WB-2 flew from New York to Germany three weeks later, 315 miles further than Lindbergh's flight.
