Stearman-Hammond Y-1 [8/8] - Henry J. Kaiser at first test flight of experimental pusher 'family' plane; designer Dean B. Hammond on left, H.V. Lindbergh on right, likely at Oakland airport, February, 1946..jpg (1/1)

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In article , Stormin' Norman says...

On 23 Sep 2018 07:04:06 -0700, Miloch
wrote:

Now that version looks like it has a very roomy cabin. I wonder why
this 1946 version failed? The economy, possibly.


....this from https://kaiserpermanentehistory.org/tag/spruce-goose/

....But soon it was postwar civil, not military, aviation that fermented in
Kaiser’s brain, and Henry J. Kaiser had grand plans.

An opening salvo came from an article titled “Still pioneering” in the Kaiser
Richmond shipyard newspaper Fore ‘n’ Aft August 10, 1945, five days before the
war’s end:

As concerns air travel, people who supposedly know say we are still in the
pioneering stage. They agree it may be some time before every manjack of us has
his own private plane, but ‘”the age of the air,” as Kaiser says, “has already
begun…” Kaiser foresees mass production of airplanes – and most of it in the
west – with sales running up to 100,000 a year.

Clay Bedford [Kaiser Richmond shipyard manager] declared in 1944: “Think of a
string of airports dotting the state every 15 miles in two great networks,
connecting with air highways across the nation—each field equipped with inns and
motels, restaurants, service and repair stations, hangars and clubrooms.

“Fantastic? Henry Kaiser doesn’t think so. He’s proposed to build a nation-wide
network of 5,000 air terminals.”

No long afterwards, the Associated Press wrote a story on February 7, 1946:

Henry Kaiser disclosed today he is well on the way to becoming an airplane
manufacturer. He saw his first model plane given its test flight at the Oakland
airport. The plane, tentatively called the Kaiser-Hammond, is a twin-tail,
pusher type, single-engine craft, with a 40-foot wingspread. It will carry 1200
pounds.

The plane had been originally designed and developed by Emeryville, Calif.,
aeronautical engineer Dean Hammond in the mid-1930s. In 1936, Hammond partnered
with noted aircraft designer Lloyd Stearman and formed the Stearman-Hammond
Aircraft Corporation to build the Stearman-Hammond Y-1. High costs hampered
sales, and production was interrupted by World War II. One design oddity was
that the aircraft had no rudder; the tailplane fins were adjustable but not
during flight. Turning was achieved by differential operation of the aileron and
elevator.

In another article on the Kaiser-Hammond, Henry J. Kaiser was quoted as saying:
“This is an automobile. Not a plane – it steers like a car and rides like one.”

But in the mid-to late 1940s, Henry J. Kaiser was heavily involved in many other
projects, including his Kaiser-Frazer automobile company. His aviation ventures
began to lose altitude, but he wasn’t quite done yet.

A Fleetwings 51 airplane proposed around 1950 was his last stab at populating
the skies. The all-metal plane would be powered by a 200-horsepower General
Motors Model GM-250 radial engine.


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