Air Racing in America

Abstract

GREAT things had been expected of the American National Air Races this year, with many new racing machines to the fore. The Hughes high‐wing monoplane, equipped with a 1,000 h.p. twin‐row Wasp engine and built at a cost of $120,000 in Los Angeles, California, was expected, from wind tunnel tests, to achieve a speed of 367 miles per hour, but, unfortunately, was completed too late for participation in the races. Actually, the competing aeroplanes and the pilots were in the end the same that had gained prominence in former years. The records established by J. Doolittle in 1932—a landplane speed record of 294·38 miles per hour and an average of 252·686 miles per hour in the closed circuit Thompson Trophy race, secured in a Gee Bee Sportster—were not even approached, as can be seen from Table I. The difficulty in aeroplane racing in the United States lies in the fact that the well‐established manufacturers do not regard it as worth their while to participate. Racing machines are built by small adventurous groups of pilots and individualistic constructors, and these groups in the lean depression years have generally found it difficult to secure financial backers.