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From: Staff
Date: 10/2/00
Time: 8:19:34 AM
Remote Name: 208.137.120.11
According to a 1935 newspaper article, as well as Noah Dietrich's accounts, Howard climbed the Racer to 12,000 feet then went into a power dive. Do we think this fits his personality? Absolutely. However, 46 years later in 1979 in an interview Glen Odekirk disagreed that the event took place. He recalled that he had heard Paul Mantz and Amelia Erhart (who were present at the record attempt) claim that Howard never climbed above 1200 feet.
If Howard had indeed power dived the airplane to that speed, our calculations show that the airfoil was within 20 mph of going supersonic, which would probably have been catastrophic. It is unlikely that we will attempt this speed (hehe).