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January 18, 1922. Fort McNair, Washington, D.C. "Naval Curtiss bombing plane at War College." View full size. National Photo Company Collection glass negative.
The aircraft is on the seaplane ramp at NAS Anacostia. The building in the background is the National War College at Fort McNair.
Only one built. more info and another photo of the same plane can be found here.
The N-9, upon which that aerial bomb was based, was a biplane, and apparently not a floatplane. Of course that doesn't help identify this one, but I don't think it's the aerial bomb you suspect.
And to me it looks like there's an open cockpit with no windshield in the central fuselage, right up front. might also be a ring mount for a gunner aft of the cockpit.
That's not a flying bomb. It's got a perfectly good open-top cockpit, over the wing between the engines. See the picture about 1/3 of the way down this page, which shows someone in it (search the page for "A-5890", which is the aircraft number as you can see on the pontoon):
There's some more information about it on this page (again, search the page for A-5890).
I looked and looked and couldn't see a cockpit anywhere. Google & wikipedia to the rescue - it was a (failed) flying bomb. Not a great chapter in aviation history:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hewitt-Sperry_Automatic_Airplane
"When last seen, the N-9 was cruising over Bayshore Air Station at about 4,000 feet (1,200 m), heading east. It was never seen again."
Well, at least it disappeared over the ocean instead of crashing into someone's house.
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