J hughes circuit racer5/17/2023 ![]() The Hughes Racer was a personal statement. After this, planes of this caliber were designed by teams of hundreds or thousands of people. “It was also the last time an individual could design an airplane that was world-class. “It was the last non-military plane to set a world speed record,” Wright says. But what really sold him on the Racer were the circumstances underlying its creation. A machinist by trade-his company, Wright Machine Tool, builds industrial saw blade sharpeners-he developed a profound professional appreciation for the quality of the H-1’s fabrication and the brilliance of its engineering. He came up with the idea of building the racer way back in 1978, when he read a reprint of an article, “A Movie Magnate’s Racer,” published in Popular Aviation in 1937. You’ll have to forgive Wright his fanatical devotion. “ Ron Englund and I did all the rivets-20,000 of them,” Wright recalls. But the vast majority was done in Wright’s hangar in Cottage Grove, Oregon, by a crew consisting of three volunteers, a paid employee, and Wright himself. Sure, some of the work was farmed out to professional subcontractors. What he ended up with is the world’s most elegant and most ambitious homebuilt. Wright estimates that it took 35,000 hours to create his replica, despite the liberal use of computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-numeric-control (CNC) precision machining mills. Nobly proportioned and gracefully streamlined, the H-1 presaged the engineering of the 1940s while embodying the hand-built virtues of the ’30s. “We built that airplane,” he repeats softly.Ī lot of prop-heads will tell you that the Hughes Racer is the most beautiful airplane ever built. “We built that airplane!” His eyes follow the Racer as Wright peels off to the west. On the edge of the ramp, three men dressed just like Wright-white button-down shirts and black pants-pound each other on the back. Final pass.” The airplane swoops down and powers past the start-finish pylon. The radios of the observers manning the record course crackle to life with news from the tower: “All stations copy. But because Hughes set only the unlimited record, Wright can establish a new mark in the Fédération Aéronutique Internationale’s 3,858- to 6,614-pound class if he averages better than 266 mph during four consecutive runs. “Howard was willing to blow his engine up,” Wright had explained. Shortly before seven this morning, Wright wedged his lanky frame into the cockpit of his gleaming replica and took off in search of a world record. Five years ago, Jim Wright undertook a project of meticulous craftsmanship crossed with magnificent obsession to re-create the Racer by reverse-engineering the original, which resides in the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. Sixty-seven years ago to the day, on September 13, 1935, Howard Hughes set a three-kilometer speed record of 352 mph in the revolutionary one-off known as the H-1, 1B, or-his preference-simply the Racer. But he sounds almost reverent when he adds, “He’s doing over 300, I’d say.” Leeward ought to know he’s racing his own P-51D Mustang and L-39 jet this weekend. “Tell you what, he’s really moving,” Jimmy Leeward murmurs. As it banks gracefully and climbs, it leaves in its wake the signature rasp of its Twin Wasp Junior radial and the collective awe of the spectators at the National Air Races in Reno, Nevada. THE AIRPLANE HAMMERS PAST, 150 FEET OFF THE DECK, THE LONG POLISHED ALUMINUM fuselage a silver dart against the distant mountains.
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