On Wed, 06 Aug 2003 19:32:13 +0000, Chris W wrote:

Felger Carbon wrote:

The newpaper stories on the replica stated that the original Hughes
racer established a 352mph world record (sort of true) in 1935, making
Howard Hughes the world's fastest pilot (false).

In the much-earlier 1930's, the Italian Schneider Cup seaplane flew to
a world record 403mph. The 1935 Hughes racer record of 352 was a
record for landplanes. Landplanes did not surpass the seaplane record
until the Germans got serious about developing fast, modern fighter
aircraft in the later 1930's.

Them Schneider Cup airplanes wuz _fast_ muthas, esp. considering the
huge pontoons were not retractible!!

What I want to know is why didn't Hughes go after *that* record in his
land plane? What was it about the sea planes that they were so much
faster than the land planes?

--
Chris Woodhouse

Actually, the world record was 440 mph, set by the Macchi MC.72 in 1934.
There is no way the Hughes 1B could come anywhere close to that record -it
would have needed much more power. The MC.72 had about 3000 hp on tap.

http://members01.chello.se/ipmsairrace/records.htm
http://aeroweb.lucia.it/en/history/mc72.htm

--
Kevin Horton RV-8 (finishing kit)
Ottawa, Canada
http://go.phpwebhosting.com/~khorton/rv8/