Dayton

Daily
News THE GREAT PLANES
A series of special pages focusing on the significant machines, events and people of powered flight’s first 100 years
CENTURY OF FLIGHT

1903 ~ 2003

Racing the wind: The golden age of air racing

Written and designed by Ted Pitts, Cleveland National Air Races photography by William Anderson, used by permission of the Anderson family and Darrell Graves
The intoxicating combination of speed and danger
– epitomized by the distinctive barrel-shaped Gee Bee
racers created in an abandoned dance hall by the
Granville Brothers of Springfield, Massachusetts – helped
make the annual National Air Races a major event of
the 1930s. At their peak, the races had grown to a ten-
day event with crowds of over a million people and
extensive newsreel and print media coverage common.
Piloting the exotic looking, and sometimes
temperamental flying machines made celebrities of the
fliers - both men and women – who risked their lives in
pursuit of the notoriety, trophies and prize money that
would keep their businesses and careers afloat in a
period during which other private commercial aviation
The Goodyear Blimp soars above the crowd at the 1931 National Air Races in
opportunities had greatly diminished. The Bendix
Cleveland
cross-country completion and the Thompson Trophy, a
100-mile, 10-lap pylon sprint, highlighted the Cleveland-
based national events and drew the best engineers,
aviators and designers.
It was a period of development and risk in an
embryonic industry and the casualty rate was high. The
controversial Gee Bee designs, culminating in the Z
model of 1931 and the R-1 and R-2 of 1932, are still
viewed as either “killer” planes or ahead-of-their-time
feats of aeronautic engineering genius. Aviation legend
Jimmy Doolittle, who piloted the R-1 to the 1932
Thompson Trophy in overwhelming style and record
time – and then retired from racing – described flying
it as akin to balancing a pencil on one’s fingertip: certainly
possible with practice but requiring absolute focus and
attention. By the end of the decade the Nationals had
diminished in popularity (the annual races continue
today in Reno, Nevada) and the Granville Brothers were
bankrupt, but the swift, beautiful planes they built reflect
a dangerous, romantic and heroic period in the history
of powered
flight.

For his December,1931

attempt on the world 3-
kilometer speed record
in Detroit, Lowell Bayles’
1931 Thompson
Trophy-winning
Model Z was
fitted with a
larger
cowling and
more powerful 800 hp.
Pratt & Whitney R-
1340. Bayles was killed
when his plane crashed
during the attempt.
Gee Bee Z
THOMPSON TROPHY WINNERS
Specs & Stats Year Winner Plane Prize Speed
Manufacturer: Granville Brothers The Gee Bee Model Z racer was the first Granville 1930 Charles W. Holman Laird LC-DW-300 "Solution" $5,000 201.91
Aircraft, Inc. Brothers plane built exclusively for racing. At the 1931 Lowell Bayles Gee Bee "Model Z" $7,500 236.239
Top speed: 270 mph. September 1931 Cleveland National Air Races, piloted 1932 James H. Doolittle Gee Bee "Model R-1" $4,500 252.686
Speed: Cruising: 230 mph. Landing: by either Lowell Bayles, above, or designer Robert 1933 James R. Wedell Wedell.Williams "44" $3,375 237.952
80 mph. Hall, the Z won every major speed race, including
Cruising range: 1,000 miles. 1934 Roscoe Turner Wedell-Williams "44" $4,500 248.129
Bayles’ victory in the prestigious Thompson Trophy. 1935 Harold Neumann Howard DGA-6 $6,750 220.194
Wing span: 23 ft. 6 in.
Length: 15 ft. 1 in. Tragically, Bayles was killed later that year in 1936 Michel Detroyat Caudron Special C-460 $9,500 264.261
Engine: 535 hp. Pratt & Whitney December when the Z crashed while Bayles was 1937 R. A. Kling Kling SK-3."Jupiter" $9,000 256.910
supercharged Wasp Jr. making an attempt on the world speed record. 1938 Roscoe Turner Laird-Turner LTR-14 $22,000 283.419
Gross weight: 2,280 lbs. Contact tpitts@coxohio.com. View this and other pages in the Great Planes series at DaytonDailyNews.com 1939 Roscoe Turner Laird-Turner LTR-14 $16,000 282.536

The R-1 was outfitted for speed with a Pratt &

Granville Brothers
Whitney 800 hp. Wasp Sr. while the R-2, intended
for cross country racing, was fitted with a 550
hp. Wasp Jr.
Gee Bee R-1

Jimmy Doolittle and the R-1 at the 1932 National Air Races in Cleveland

Jimmy Doolittle at the races

After he became America’s first World War I ace, and before he was
honored as a World War II Medal of Honor winner, James Doolittle, among
11
other things: became the first pilot to fly across the U.S. in a single day in
1922; performed the first outside loop in a Curtiss P-1 pursuit plane in 1925;
won the 1925 Schneider (seaplane) Trophy Race, establishing a world record
speed of 245 mph. and, on September 24, 1929, made the first blind
(instruments only) flight in history. Doolittle also earned a doctorate in BENDIX TROPHY WINNERS
aeronautical engineering from M.I.T. Race Winner Plane Prize Speed Time
In 1931 he won the cross-country Bendix Trophy race, stopped for 30 1931 Los Angeles to Cleveland J. H. Doolittle  Laird "Super Solution"  $7,500 233.058   9:10:21
minutes to refuel and then set a new transcontinental record with a time of 1932 - Burbank to Cleveland James G. Haizlip Wedell-Williams "44" $6,750 245.   8:19:45
11 hrs. 16 min. and 10 sec. with an average speed of 217 mph. 1933 - New York to Los Angeles Roscoe Turner Wedell-Williams "44" $5,050 214.78   11:30
,filling in for the injured Russell Boardman at the National Air Races in Cleveland, 1934 - Los Angeles to Cleveland Doug Davis Wedell-Williams "44" $4,500 216.237   9:26:41
Doolittle set a world speed record of 296.287 and then won the coveted closed-course 1935 - Los Angeles to Cleveland Ben O. Howard Howard DGA-6 $4,500 238.704   8:33:16
Thompson Trophy Race in the Granville Brothers’ Gee Bee R-1. 1936 - New York to Los Angeles Louise Thaden Beechcraft $7,000 166.060   14:55
The Granville Brothers formed the “Springfield Air Race 1937 - Los Angeles to Cleveland Frank Fuller Seversky SEV-S2 $13,000 258.242   7:54:26
Specs & Stats Association” with money from private investors to help 1938 - Los Angeles to Cleveland Jacqueline Cochran Seversky SEV-S $12,500 249.744   8:10:31
Manufacturer: Granville Brothers Aircraft, Inc., Springfield, Massachusetts defray the cost of their racing activities. 1939 - Los Angeles to Cleveland Frank Fuller Seversky SEV-S2 $15,000 282.098   7:14:19
Span: 25 ft.
Length: 17 ft. 9 inches
Engine: 800 hp. Pratt & Whitney Wasp Sr. Sources: Flight, 100 Years of Aviation by R.G. Grant (Dorling Kindersley Ltd., 2002); Gee Bee by Delmar Benjamin & Steve Wolf (MBI Publishing, 1993); Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Book of Flight by Judith
Gross weight: 2,415 lbs. Rinard (Firefly Books, 2001); U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission, www.centennialofflight.gov; Western Reserve Historical Society, www.wrhs.org/exhibits/airrace/index.htm; The Golden Age of Aviation, by
Maximum speed: 309 mph Darrell Graves, www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/4515/index.html

FLIERS and FLYING MACHINES

A replica of the H-1 was built by a team led by entrepreneur Jim Wright in 2002

Howard Hughes and the H-1

In 1935, 30-year-old Howard Hughes, millionaire businessman, moviemaker,
aviator and suitor to the likes of Katherine Hepburn and Jean Harlow, set about
designing and building the revolutionary H-1 racer. The sleek flying machine
resides today in the National Air and Space Museum, a monument to Hughes’
vision and to the golden age of aviation between the two world wars.
The H-1 was designed by Hughes and Richard Palmer and built by Glenn Odekirk.
It’s streamlined, low-drag form, powered by a 900 hp. Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp
Junior, was aerodynamically superb and featured the first-ever hydraulically-
controlled retractable landing gear.
On Sept. 13, 1935, with Amelia Earhart
flying above to ensure that Hughes
did not exceed the 1,000-ft. altitude
limit during his attempt, he piloted
the H-1 to a new world speed record
of 353.388 mph, more than 40 miles
per hour faster that the previous
record. Hughes flew a modified
version of the H-1 with longer wings
to a new United States
transcontinental speed record in
Hughes and the H-1
1937.
Roscoe Turner with his number 25 Wedell-Williams and his number 29 Laird-Turner
Roscoe Turner and the Williams 44
Roscoe Turner was one of the most successful pilots of the golden age of air
racing in the 1930s, winning the Thompson Trophy in 1934, 1938 and 1939, and
the Bendix cross-country race in 1933.
Jim Wedell, backed by millionaire Harry Williams, built three nearly identical
planes in the 1930-1932 period to race in the major pylon and long distance
events. All were referred to as “44s”. Wedell flew his personal number 44 to
victory in the Thompson in 1933. James Haizlip, among others, flew the No. 92
successfully, winning the 1932 Bendix cross country race in the racer. The third
aircraft was built for Turner, who used it to win the Bendix in 1933.
The model 44 weighed 1500 pounds and was powered by a Pratt & Whitney
Wasp Junior. The engine made up nearly half the weight of the plane. Turner later
replaced the Wasp with a Hornet engine on his aircraft, increasing the weight to
almost 2000 lbs.
The Schneider Trophy and the S.6B
Established in 1913 as an annual competition of seaplanes by Frenchman
Jacques Schneider, the Schneider Cup races became a major nationalistic event
with government-sponsored teams from the United States, Great Britain and Italy
winning most of the laurels. The pursuit of greater speed and less drag led
naturally to the development of sleek monoplanes and at least partially to the
demise of the biplane.
The United States was victorious in 1923 with a Navy Curtiss CR-3 piloted by
David Rittenhouse and again in 1925 on the strength of U.S. Army Lt. Jimmy
Doolittle’s 232.37 mph in a Curtiss R3C-2.
The British retired the trophy by winning consecutive competitions in 1927,
1929 and 1931. The Supermarine S.6B type piloted by John Boothman of the
Royal Air Force which won the 1931 competition was the inspiration for the
Supermarine Spitfire fighter of WWII. The S.6B became the first plane to exceed
400 mph when G.H. Stainforth flew the Supermarine at 407.5 mph, setting a new
world speed record for planes of any type in September 1931.