Hughes H-1 Racer
In 1935 Howard Hughes built what would become the worlds fastest single engine land aircraft, the Hughes H-1 Racer.
The Hughes H-1 racer was developed to be the fastest landplane in the world, It was
designed by Howard Hughes and Richard Palmer as well as a
small team of engineers, and built by Glenn Odekirk and his team. On September 13, 1935,
Hughes achieved the design goal by flying the H-1 to a new world speed record of 352.322
mph. The record was set over a specially instrumented course near Santa Ana, California.
Since Hughes did not require a sponsor for the aircraft, the H-1 had no markings except
the license number NR258Y (later NX 258Y) in chrome yellow against the dark blue
background of the wings, and in black against the doped aluminum rudder. The fuselage was
left in its natural polished aluminum finish. The H-1 was powered by a Pratt and Whitney
Twin Wasp Jr. radial piston engine, which was rated at 700 horsepower at 8,500 feet but
which could deliver 1,000 horsepower for high-speed flight. A wind tunnel model of the
aircraft was exhaustively tested in the 200-mph wind tunnel at the California Institute of
Technology’s Guggenheim
Aeronautical Laboratory. Actual performance figures for the aircraft closely matched
the predicted design performance.
The H-1 had two sets of
wings, The wings Hughes used to break the land plane speed record were of a low aspect ratio
and shorter than those with which it is now fitted. The wings now fitted on the aircraft
span 31 feet, 9 inches. have a moderate-aspect ratio, and were used when Howard Hughes
broke the transcontinental speed record in the H-1 on January 19,
1937. Surprisingly, Howard mentioned in a later interview that the longer wings did
not detract from overall performance - hinting that wing loading was too high for the
available horsepower with the shorter wings. Hughes also fitted a different propeller onto
the aircraft from the one used during his land plane speed record. (According to our
conversations with an engineer on the original H-1, John Newberry,
there where several different propellers tested).
Hughes departed Los Angeles
before dawn and arrived at Newark Airport,
outside New York City, 7 hours, 28 minutes, and 25 seconds later. His average speed over
the 2,490-mile course was 332 mph, and this nonstop flight was truly an outstanding
accomplishment - especially in light of the fact that he had been forced down to 14,000
feet due to an oxygen system malfunction. Had he been able to fly the originally planned
altitude of 21,000 feet his time may well have been much faster.
The Hughes H-1 was designed for record-setting purposes, but it also had an impact on the
design of high-performance aircraft for years to come. Some of the outstanding design
features of the H-1 were: a close fitting bell-shaped engine cowling to reduce airframe
drag and improve engine cooling; gently curving wing fillets between the wing and the
fuselage to help stabilize the airflow, reduce drag, and prevent potentially dangerous
eddying and tail buffeting; hydraulically retractable landing gear (a first on land
aircraft) to reduce drag and increase speed and range (typical of everything on the H-1,
the landing gear was so perfectly fitted that the gear fairings and doors are difficult to
see without looking closely); all rivets and joints flush with the aircraft’s skin
and flathead and countersunk screws on the plywood wings; ailerons designed to droop 15
degrees when the flaps are fully extended to improve lift along the full length of the
wing during landing and takeoff; the pilot sitting in a smoothly faired and totally
enclosed cockpit during cruise. During take off and landing, the side windows were lowered
into the fuselage, the windscreen slid forward, and the seat was raised to allow for more
forward visibility.
The Hughes H-1 racer was a major milestone aircraft on the road to such radial
engine-powered World War II fighters as the American Grumman F6F Hellcat
and Republic P-47 Thunderbolt,
the Japanese Mitsubishi Type 0 (Zero),
and the German Focke-WuIf FW
190. It demonstrated that properly designed radial-engine aircraft could
compete with the lower-drag inline designs despite having larger frontal areas because of
their radial engine installations.
The H-1 was kept in the Hughes factory at Culver City, California, until it was donated to
the Smithsonian Institution in 1975. It is now exhibited in the Golden
Age of Flight gallery of the National Air and Space Museum.
Special thanks to Mr. Edmund I. "Skip" Eveleth, former test engineer on the Pratt & Whitney R-1535 Twin Wasp Junior.
Special thanks to Mr. John Harvey Newbury, a member of the original H-1 design team.
Special thanks to Mr. Peter Palmer, nephew of H-1 designer Richard Palmer for allowing acquisition of original artwork by Alfred Owles.
Click here to view current construction photos.