Hughes H-1 Racer

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H-1 Racer as it looked in 1935

The H-1 was a racing aircraft built by Howard Hughes' company in 1935. It set a world airspeed record, and a transcontinental speed record across the United States.

1 History
2 Trivia
3 Specifications (H-1 Racer, original wings)
4 Sources
5 Related content

[edit] History

During his work on the movie Hell's Angels, Hughes employed Glenn Odekirk to maintain the fleet of over 100 aircraft used in the production. The two men had a common interest in aviation and hatched a plan to build a record-beating aircraft. The plane was given many names, but is commonly known as the H-1 -- the first model produced by Hughes Aircraft Corporation. Many groundbreaking technologies were developed during the construction process, including individually machined flush rivets that left the aluminium skin of the aircraft completely smooth. Also it had retractable landing gear to further increase the speed of the plane. It was fitted with a twin-row 14-cylinder radial engine, of approximately 18 liters, putting out over 1,000 horsepower (750 kW).

The H-1 first flew in 1935 and promptly broke the world land-plane speed record with Hughes at the controls, clocking 352 mph (566 km/h) average over 4 timed passes. Hughes apparently ran the plane out of fuel and managed to crash-land without serious damage to either himself or H-1. As soon as Hughes exited the plane when he crashed it in the beet field, 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 later implemented minor changes to the H-1 Racer to make it more suitable for a trans-continental speed record attempt. The most significant change was the fitting of a new longer set of wings that gave the plane a lighter wing loading. On January 19, 1937, a year and a half after his previous land-plane speed record in the H-1, Hughes set a new trans-continental 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 mph (518 km/h). [1]

Hughes fully expected the United States Army Air Forces to embrace his plane's new design and make the H-1 the basis for a new generation of U.S. fighter planes. However, for reasons that are obscure, this did not happen. Instead when World War II started, the USAAF was fielding a fleet of P-39 Airacobras, and P-40 Warhawks. After the war, Howard Hughes claimed that "it was quite apparent to everyone that it (the Japanese Zero) had been copied from the Hughes (H-1 Racer)." (Howard Hughes, In his own words). Other aviation historians have suggested that the H-1 Racer inspired other radial-engine fighters such as the P-47 Thunderbolt, and the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 (William Wraga (2000)). However, there is no direct testimony from the other aircraft designers which would support these ideas, nor is such evidence likely to be found.

The original H-1 Racer was donated to the Smithsonian in 1975 and is on display at the National Air and Space Museum.

A replica of the H-1 was built by Jim Wright of Oregon, and first flew in 2002, but was destroyed in a crash on August 4, 2003, killing Wright.

[edit] Trivia

The second set of wings was painted blue, but the original (short-span) wings were painted red. Various documents (including an article from TIME magazine, Sep 23, 1935) confirm this, but it is still a little-known fact since there are no color photographs of the plane from the 1930's and the wings have always been depicted as blue in modern media (such as in the film The Aviator).

Over time, the wings have been marked with registration numbers NR258Y, NX258Y, and finally simply R258Y. Several photos exist of a transitional period in which the X was painted directly on top of the R (see the photo at the top of this page). The color of the registration letters at the time of the record setting flights is said to have been white. Hughes later repainted the letters to the current yellow color to match the color of his company's logo.