Why have I never heard of this before? What a beautiful machine!
The Hughes H-1 was 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; every aircraft to hold the honor since has been a military design.The H-1 first flew in 1935 and promptly broke the world landplane speed record with Hughes at the controls, clocking 352 mph (566 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. As soon as Hughes exited the H-1 when he crashed it in a beet field south of Santa Ana, Calif., his only comment was: "We can fix her, she'll go faster". At the time, the world seaplane speed record was 440 mph (709 km/h), set by a Macchi M.C.72 in October 1934
Hughes designed the P-38 too...
ReplyDeleteMore than a little bit of genius in that man.
DeleteNo he didn't!!! The P-38 Lockheed Lightning was desighned by Kelly Johnson in 1940, He was the same guy that did the SR-71/ YF-12 in the '60s. The H-1 is a pretty thing, but it was five years behind the TEC. curve the day it rolled out for its first start up. This was mainly dew to H.Hughes Obsession with tweeking every last detail to death. It is the reason he never got a single aircraft into production during WW-2(this in spite of 100 million in 1944 dollars for R&D) Hughes was NUTS!!! Stark Raving!
ReplyDeleteI thought that Johnson worked for Hughes. If that's not the case, I stand corrected. Mia culpa.
ReplyDelete