- 9 hours ago
For educational purposes
From the early years of flight until the late 1930s, air racing was the single most important testing ground for engineering advancements.
It provided a breathtaking combination of daredevil risk taking and technological innovation.
Featured Aircraft:
- Granville Gee Bee Model R Super Sportster
- North American P-51 Mustang
- Stiletto racer
From the early years of flight until the late 1930s, air racing was the single most important testing ground for engineering advancements.
It provided a breathtaking combination of daredevil risk taking and technological innovation.
Featured Aircraft:
- Granville Gee Bee Model R Super Sportster
- North American P-51 Mustang
- Stiletto racer
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:01Hi, I'm Neil Armstrong. Join me for an adventure through time.
00:53I'm Neil Armstrong.
01:00Once controlled flight was possible, pilots vied to be the first and the best. Air racing
01:06was fueled by the drive to go faster than any human alive. International attention focused
01:12on the daring pilots who pushed technology to new limits. From the early years of flight
01:19until the late 1930s, air racing was the single most important testing ground for engineering
01:26advancements. It provided a breathtaking combination of daredevil, risk-taking, and technological
01:33innovation.
01:40Speed. Once aviation pioneers had propelled themselves free from the earth, the quest for speed became
01:48paramount. Competition was fierce. It soon became a source of national pride to fly faster,
01:55farther, and higher than anyone had gone before. In 1909, Orville Wright was piloting demonstration
02:02flights for the Army. Asked how it felt to be making history, Orville replied, I'm a good
02:08deal more wrapped up in making speed. That same year, Glenn Curtis won the first Gordon Bennett
02:14Cup air race, and out of a passion for speed, began a new sport, air racing. Concerned that
02:22Great Britain was lagging behind America and France in the aviation race, the London Daily Mail sponsored
02:28a series of awards to raise national interest in aviation. A prize of 10,000 pounds was offered
02:34for the first flight from London to Manchester. The 183-mile trip had to be accomplished in 24 hours.
02:50In 1910, Claude Graham White and Louis Paulin competed for the award, both flying farm and biplanes.
03:05Graham White got a late start and heroically flew through the night to catch up to Paulin.
03:20At dawn, the wind began to rise, and he was forced to land. His competitor, Paulin, had spent the night
03:28in a hotel.
03:34Warned of Graham White's approach, the more experienced Paulin took off to cover the remaining 70 miles.
03:47He arrived cold and badly shaken. I would not do it again, he claimed, for 10 times 10,000 pounds.
03:55He arrived cold and badly shaken. I would not do it again, he claimed, for 10 times 10,000 pounds.
03:57Other cross-country races sprang up across Europe. Jewels for Drins flew the 1911 Paris to Madrid race,
04:04and landed with stories of a vicious eagle attack in the Somosierra Pass.
04:10All the other competitors had dropped out along the way. The Drins alone finished victorious.
04:20As the quest for distance and speed intensified, airplanes became faster. In 1910, a popular event at airshows was an
04:30airplane airship race.
04:34By 1914, this was no longer a contest. Instead, the automobile was the only serious challenger.
04:41At a 1914 airshow, stunt pilot Lincoln Beachy raced famous race car driver Eddie Rickenbacker.
04:51Rickenbacker went on to become America's greatest World War I ace, while Beachy became famous doing loops at airshows.
04:58He charged $500 for the first loop, and $200 for each one after that.
05:04It was estimated that in 1914, he had looped 1,000 times before 17 million people.
05:14In 1912, a great air race began, which would be a famous display for national pride for decades to come.
05:22Jacques Schneider, head of a French armaments firm, conceived of a closed course air race for seaplanes, and donated a
05:30trophy that bore his name.
05:32The Schneider Cup would have a profound influence on the technological advances in aviation until the end of the races
05:38in 1931.
05:40Despite the added drag of floats, the Schneider Cup produced the fastest planes of the era.
05:46The racers found that the way to get more speed was to increase power or decrease drag.
05:53To lessen drag, aircraft became more streamlined.
05:57Fabric covered by planes with wire bracing evolved into sleek monoplanes.
06:04The quest for speed brought about major developments in supercharging, high-octane fuels, and cooling the big engines.
06:13In the years after World War I, Italy, Britain, and the United States vied for the trophy.
06:19In 1925, with joint Army-Navy sponsorship, Lieutenant James Doolittle flew a Curtis R3C2 to victory for the U.S.
06:31The next year, the Italians entered a Machi M39, one of the most advanced airplanes in existence, and took the
06:39prize in a close race.
06:46Then, British supermarines won three victories in a row, and kept the Schneider Trophy permanently.
07:00When an early racing pilot stepped into his airplane, he was exploring the edges of known technology.
07:08Engineers and manufacturers eagerly awaited what he had to say, assuming he survived.
07:15Among the fastest and most dangerous racers to fly was the GB.
07:21Its high wing loading made it subject to high-speed stalls.
07:25At 50 feet above the ground, there was no room for error.
07:30Jimmy Doolittle was the only pilot to race the GB successfully.
07:35Doolittle had an exceptional understanding of aerodynamics and the effects of high-G turns.
07:41Instead of making very steep turns, which could cause the airplane to spin out of control,
07:48flew a steady, continuous turn around the pylons, setting speed records hard to top.
07:57In the United States, the national air races had become a showcase for the latest military aircraft.
08:03Then, in 1929, a significant change occurred.
08:08For the first time, a civilian entry beat out the military contenders.
08:12For the next decade, air racing would be a grassroots sport, dominated by pilots and designers operating with little money
08:21and little formal training,
08:23borrowing equipment and ideas from any sources available, and pushing aviation technology forward to new levels of achievement.
08:31In their search for greater speed, they became the top aviation researchers of their day.
08:39Two main events at the nationals set the tone for the golden age of racing.
08:43The Thompson Trophy, a closed course race around pylons, and a cross-country race, the Bendix Trophy.
08:52Two men rose above the rest during this time, Jimmy Doolittle and Roscoe Turner.
08:58Doolittle left military service in 1930 and promptly won the first Bendix Trophy,
09:04flying the Super Solution from Urbank, California, to Cleveland, Ohio, at an average speed of 223 miles per hour.
09:17In 1932, he won the Thompson Trophy, flying one of the Granville Brothers' GBs, and set a new world speed
09:24record of 296 miles per hour.
09:28The stubby GBs dominated the nationals from 1931 through 1934.
09:33The Granville Brothers designed their aircraft on the assumption that the most streamlined shape had to be the raindrop,
09:41since it was falling at terminal velocity.
09:44Their airplanes bulged at the front and tapered severely at the rear, even at the expense of tail surface.
09:51Doolittle called the GB the most unforgiving I ever flew.
09:56Doolittle considered the risk too great and the GB too dangerous.
10:00He retired from air racing.
10:03All seven GBs crashed within four years, killing five pilots.
10:09After Doolittle retired, Roscoe Turner became America's most famous air racer.
10:15Turner was a flamboyant showman with a flair for self-promotion.
10:20The country, mired in the Depression, embraced him like a folk hero.
10:24He used the honorary title Colonel from the Nevada National Guard, dressed in a military uniform, and took his pet
10:32lion Gilmore everywhere.
10:36Flying the Waddell Williams 57, Turner won the 1933 Bendix and the 1934 Thompson Trophies.
10:45Roscoe Turner entered the 1937 Thompson race in a new 1,000-horsepower aircraft called the Medium.
10:53Turner had refined the GB shape, but although not a technological breakthrough, its Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp engine had
11:01the brute force to win races.
11:03Turner won the 1938 Thompson by more than 10 miles, and the 1939 as well.
11:10With that victory, Turner became the first and only pilot to win the Thompson three times, and it was given
11:17to him as a permanent possession.
11:19On that day, he retired from air racing.
11:25For a while, women pilots dominated the cross-country Bendix.
11:33Louise Thayden, in a Beechcraft C-17R, was the first woman to win the race.
11:39Well, Jackie, here is your plane.
11:41Well, I don't know if there's a better way to have it delivered than breaking a cross-continental record.
11:45Hope I do as well going back.
11:47Oh, you do better. I know it.
11:50Jackie Cochran flew a Saversky SEV 52 to victory in 1938.
11:55The all-metal Saversky 52 was the premier Bendix race plane in the last three races before World War II.
12:04Tony Levere flew some of the fastest racers in their class in the late 1930s.
12:10Tony talked with Neil and recalled those glory days of racing.
12:15Tony, you were involved in air racing in the early days, in the 30s.
12:21How did you get involved in air racing?
12:22I actually wanted to start racing early on, but just being a kid was hard to come by the bucks
12:32to get an airplane.
12:34I bought a cracked-up racer that had been flown by Ralph Bushey, and he was actually on a speed
12:41run just north of the airport at about 1,000 feet.
12:46When the engine flew out of this airplane, no kidding, and the airplane naturally was terribly tail-heavy, and it
12:55went up in a loop-like, and stalled, and fluttered down out of control,
13:02and landed right smack on top of a haystack.
13:08The only haystack in the area, believe it or not, which obviously saved his life, but the fuselage buckled badly,
13:18and he put the remains up for sale for 150 bucks, and I bought it.
13:23If you could win a race, could you win enough money to keep your race team going?
13:29Only if you won.
13:31Well, your first race, how did it come out?
13:33I won.
13:35In fact, the next day I won it, too.
13:37And now we're quite excited, and the main event on the final day is the unlimited class.
13:45I'd only been flying against the smaller airplanes like mine.
13:50And Schoenfeld said, let them fight it out for so many laps, and after the sixth lap, I want you
13:58to open it up and go after them.
14:01And I did.
14:02And in one lap, I halved the distance, and I said, my God, we're going to win this third race.
14:10And then I noticed my oil pressure dropped to almost zero, and I backed off and took third.
14:16I ended up, though, with the point system.
14:18I won championship for the race.
14:21Because of your wins in the first two races in the third place in the third race.
14:25And actually, they gave the trophy, the champion trophy, to Oral Artman, and I looked at the paper on the
14:34thing, and I said, hey, I got more points than him.
14:38I went up and told them, and they took it away and gave it to me.
14:45For a decade, the races thrilled the public with their daredevil exploits and carnival-like setting.
14:52Amid the harsh realities of the depression, air racing offered excitement and dreams, and danger.
15:00A third of the Bendix and Thompson champions died in the sport.
15:03They were called aerial gladiators, flirting with death for a pot of gold and the love of flying.
15:11They would become the stuff of legends, representing the hopes and adventures of millions,
15:17as they explored the frontiers of flight, an uncharted territory that would later belong only to test pilots.
15:28Designers drew on air racing experience to create the P-51 Mustang, arguably the finest American fighter of World War
15:37II.
15:38Race pilot Art Chester designed the engine installation and front end of the prototype, resembling the air racers of the
15:46time.
15:46The early Mustangs had a cockpit fared into the fuselage, but fighter pilots couldn't see well enough, and a bubble
15:54canopy was added.
15:56So it's not surprising that these fast fighters could be converted into fast racers.
16:02Visibility was less important than speed for the air racer, so the canopy and many other features were modified for
16:10maximum speed.
16:11As with this 1984 champion at the Reno Air Races, the Stiletto.
16:18Just as air racing experiences influenced the design of World War II aircraft, those fighters, in turn, changed the face
16:28of air racing after the war.
16:32When the Thompson Trophy races resumed after the Second World War, the sport had a whole new look.
16:39Sophisticated fighter planes, which had cost governments tens of thousands of dollars, were now available as military surplus.
16:47Any of these racers that we bought at the end of the war, P-38s, 51s, and the Bearcats, and
16:55you name it, they could buy those for something like a penny on the dollar of their worth, or less.
17:04I had my P-38, and I bought it brand new for $1,250.
17:09And my crew were men from Lockheed.
17:12They were all Lockheed people that wanted to be with me on it and help me.
17:17And I paid them, they kept track of their own time, and I paid them $2 an hour for their
17:26labor after the race was over and I had some money.
17:29I had the winnings.
17:31Jet aircraft entered the racing scene and shattered cross-country Bendix times.
17:39The final Bendix race in 1962 saw a hustler cross the continent in two hours.
17:50Fifteen years after the last Thompson Trophy race, closed-course air racing was revived at Reno, Nevada in 1964.
17:58The modified World War II designs have remained the fastest propeller-driven aircraft in the world.
18:06We're here with Skip Holm, who has enjoyed extraordinary success in air racing.
18:13Skip, the World War II fighters brought a whole new level of speed to the air racing circuit.
18:21Yes, that's true. That was somewhat before I got involved in it, but you're absolutely right.
18:26And that's the majority of air racers today are World War II.
18:30I think there's only several, only a few that aren't.
18:33You know, one being Tsunami and a Pond racer.
18:36You've been involved in a lot of the Reno air races.
18:39Tell me about your experience over those years.
18:43Actually, I'd never gone to Reno until I went there to fly.
18:45And I didn't understand anything that went on up there, except they had a bunch of sticks in the ground
18:50and you drove an airplane around it.
18:53And also, I didn't ever knew what speeds they were.
18:55And one time, the day after we got there, the field from one of the local newspapers came over and
19:01said,
19:01How fast are you going to go? And I didn't have a clue of how fast I was going to
19:05go.
19:05And so I glanced over at Jeannie and I saw 438 on the side.
19:09So I thought, well, 438.
19:11And I looked at him and I said, 450.
19:13And he just started laughing. He said, 450.
19:15He said, no one's ever gone 450.
19:17He says, why'd you pick 450? And I said, oh, well, my room number's 450.
19:21And it just seemed like a good number.
19:24And anyway, we went 450.018.
19:27You know, better to be lucky than good, right?
19:29No aircraft epitomizes the speed and danger of air racing like the GB.
19:35But pilot Delmar Benjamin hopes to vindicate its notorious reputation with his replica R2.
19:42This airplane is fun to fly.
19:44It had the reputation as the most dangerous airplane ever built.
19:47So that's a challenge to overcome that.
20:00It launches itself much like a dragster.
20:03It weighs 2,100 pounds and 500 horsepower.
20:06So it really goes.
20:11The airplane is built exactly as the original.
20:13It's a challenge. You need to pay attention every minute.
20:24One of the things that the airplane does really well is flying knife edge or on its side.
20:28It'll do that basically forever.
20:32It'll run out of tank of fuel on its side.
20:35The airplane was not designed to be an aerobatic airplane.
20:40It was designed specifically for racing.
20:42I demonstrate the aerobatics just to prove that it is a good flyable airplane.
20:56Right.
21:14The airplane was not designed to fly actually.
21:14So I want to show you guys.
21:14The airplane went down and forth.
21:15I'm home.
21:15We're home.
21:15You're home.
21:15You're home.
21:16You're home.
21:16You're home.
21:20Nobody had managed to build this airplane in 60 years, and that's the reason that I
21:26chose the airplane, because nobody else did it, and I don't think anybody else will be
21:30doing it in the near future.
21:39Join me again next week for First Flights.
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