I had the honor and pleasure of talking with Mr. Wright a few times that year at Oshkosh, the last time as he was waiting on some weather to clear on his route home. I was very saddened to hear of the crash and the loss of Mr. Wright and his incredible airplane. He had it on display right at air show center. with no ropes keeping people away. The fit and finish of the skin just drew people to it like moths to a flame. After a person would rub the skin trying to find the seem, he had people who would walk behind and buff off the finger prints. You needed sunglasses to look at it in the sun! I have read that they cave it a serial number 2 to the original H-1, as it was an exact replica of the original down to the last rivet. Jim told me that he felt that the single most limiting factor on the airplane was the prop. He had three copies of the original made, and broke one on a landing gear collapse. They flew a few record speed runs with the "stock" prop, and he had some other prop designs in mind for future speed runs and was sure there was a lot more speed in it than the original prop could provide. They would not let him fly the airplane there at Oshkosh because he did not have his original certificate of insurance, only a copy, and they would not accept that. I can't help but believe that if he had been able to fly off some more time while in Wisconsin he would have detected the problem that caused the crash, an issue with the prop, I believe. I think Steve Moon had done a stunt model of the airplane before, and I gave Ted Fancher copies of everything I had on the Hughes Racer several years ago because he was thinking about it also. I have several plans for rubber powered scale models and a Dumas and Dave Diels kits for a rubber model of it also. "So many airplanes and so little time!" Walt Mooney.
Type at you later,
Dan McEntee
Topic: Potential Scale or Stunt Model (Read 1762 times)
