x planes

sunday fantasy #392: more from Clavework Graphics

While we wait for a record breaker, another (potential) one caught my eye the other day:

“An amateur aircraft designer can tailor a plane to fit his or her precise requirements, no matter how outlandish. Take David Rose. Inside his hangar at Montgomery Field in San Diego, this former airline pilot is building a machine that he hopes will earn him aeronautical immortality.

If all goes according to plan, a thunderously overpowered racing machine called RP-4 will reach a straight and level speed in excess of 528.3 mph and become the world’s fastest piston-driven plane. The 22-year-old record is held by a modified World War II—era Grumman F8F Bearcat.”

the Bernard HV 42, circa 1931 (via)

“Blanche Noyes, Women’s Air Derby pilot” (aircraft, via)

“Navy-Curtiss Racer in which Lieut. A. J. Williams won the Pulitzer Race at 243.68 m.p.h. Later Lieut. Williams established a new world record of 266.6 m.p.h. for three kilometers straightaway. – photo, U.S. Navy.” (via)

“Calshot 1927, Gloster Napier IVB, N222 seen on the slipway at Calshot prior to the 1927 Schneider Trophy Race” (via)

“Louis Paulhan in a race” (via)

P-51 racers Voodoo, Strega and Precious Metal

art by the mighty speedbirds

“Jackie Cochran with the Staggerwing Beechcraft she flew in the 1937 Bendix Trophy Race. Finishing third, Cochran set a women’s speed record of 203.9mph and established an altitude record of more than 30,000 feet. She would win overall first-place the next” (via)

“Thaden, McPhetridge Louise
Catalog #: 02-T-00075
Repository: San Diego Air and Space Museum Archive

(also: The Bendix Trophy)

Racing Mustangs. Art by Taichiro Yamashita (prints of individual aircraft are available)

P-38 Lightning “Honey Bunny” races Scott Hammack’s Smoke N’ Thunder jet car at the California Capitol Airshow, September 2010

photo by Sagar N. Panthak

(also)

Grumman F8F Bearcat “Rare Bear”

(photo by Rob Miller)

Supermarine Spitfire “LZ138” at the 1949 Cleveland Air Races. The aircraft still survives, currently in Vancouver

sunday fantasy #210: “Conway R-3 floatplane”, by R.J Barthrop