Hughes H-1 Racer

Miloch wrote in
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_H-1_Racer

The Hughes H-1 is a racing aircraft built by Hughes Aircraft in 1935.
It set a world airspeed record and a transcontinental speed record
across the United States. The H-1 Racer was the last aircraft built by
a private individual to set the world speed record; most aircraft to
hold the honor since have been military designs.

During his work on his movie Hell's Angels, Howard Hughes employed
Glenn Odekirk to maintain the fleet of over 100 aircraft used in the
production. The two men shared a common interest in aviation and
hatched a plan to build a record-beating aircraft. The aircraft was
given many names, but is commonly known as the H-1. It was the first
aircraft model produced by the Hughes Aircraft company.

Design studies began in 1934 with an exacting, large scale model (over
two feet in length) that was tested in the California Institute of
Technology wind tunnel, revealing a speed potential of 365 miles per
hour (587 km/h).

Streamlining was a paramount design criterion resulting in "one of the
cleanest and most elegant aircraft designs ever built." Many
groundbreaking technologies were developed during the construction
process, including individually machined flush rivets that left the
aluminium skin of the aircraft completely smooth. The H-1 also had
retractable landing gear to further increase the speed of the
aircraft, including a fully retractable hydraulically actuated tail
skid. It was fitted with a Pratt & Whitney R-1535 twin-row 14-cylinder
radial engine of 1,535 cubic inches (25.15 l), which although
originally rated at 700 horsepower (522 kW), was tuned to put out over
1,000 horsepower (750 kW).

Due to two different roles being envisioned for the racing aircraft, a
set of short-span wings for air racing and speed records and a set of
"long" wings for cross-country racing were prepared.


Role
Racing aircraft
Long-range aircraft [for record attempt]

Manufacturer
Hughes Aircraft

Designer
Richard Palmer

First flight
September 13, 1935

Primary user
Howard Hughes

Produced
1935

Number built
1

Career


Registration
NR258Y

Preserved at
National Air and Space Museum

The H-1 first flew in 1935 and promptly broke the world landplane
speed record with Hughes at the controls, clocking 352.39 mph (567.12
km/h) averaged over four timed passes. Hughes apparently ran the
aircraft out of fuel and managed to crash-land without serious damage
to either himself or the H-1.:133-134 As soon as Hughes exited the H-1
when he crashed it in a beet field south of Santa Ana, California, his
only comment was: "We can fix her; she'll go faster." At the time, the
world seaplane speed record was 440.7 mph (709.2 km/h), set by a
Macchi M.C.72 in October 1934.

Hughes later implemented minor changes to the H-1 Racer to make it
more suitable for a transcontinental speed record attempt. The most
significant change was the fitting of a new, longer set of wings that
gave the aircraft a lower wing loading. On January 19, 1937, a year
and a half after his previous landplane speed record in the H-1,
Hughes set a new transcontinental speed record by flying non-stop from
Los Angeles to New York City in 7 hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds. He
smashed his own previous record of 9 hours, 27 minutes by two hours.
His average speed over the flight was 322 miles per hour (518 km/h).

Considering the contemporary service aircraft were biplanes, Hughes
fully expected the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) to embrace his
aircraft's new design and make the H-1 the basis for a new generation
of U.S. fighter aircraft. His efforts to "sell" the design were
unsuccessful. In postwar testimony before the Senate, Hughes indicated
that resistance to the innovative design was the basis for the USAAC
rejection of the H-1: "I tried to sell that airplane to the Army but
they turned it down because at that time the Army did not think a
cantilever monoplane was proper for a pursuit ship..."

Aviation historians have posited that the H-1 Racer may have inspired
later radial engine fighters such as the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt and
the Focke-Wulf Fw 190. After the war, Hughes further claimed that "it
was quite apparent to everyone that the Japanese Zero fighter had been
copied from the Hughes H-1 Racer." He noted both the wing shape, the
tail design and the general similarity of the Zero and his racer. Jiro
Horikoshi, designer of the Mitsubishi Zero strongly denied the
allegation of the Hughes H-1 influencing the design of the Japanese
fighter aircraft.

The Hughes H-1 Racer is featured in the 1940 RKO Radio Pictures movie
Men Against the Sky.



Millionaire Jim Wright built and flew a full
scale replica until his fatal crash in it in 2009.


https://tinyurl.com/y6ax3abh