Finally getting around to tweaking and resizing my photos for posting here... many are poor quality (scanned prints, etc.) but at Airventure 2003 I got hold of a beautiful digital (Canon was loaning them out!), and took a few good ones. The disc with most of the in-flight stuff got trashed before I could dupe it (Nooooo!), but that's how it goes. Here's some shots of Jim Wright's absolutely jaw-dropping replica of Howard Hughes' incrediblt H1 racer.
The shot above really shows off the incredible polished surface and amazing metalwork. She was made of wood and aluminum, and flew about as fast as the original. Wright set a new Category C1d speed record with this plane in 2002 (304.47mph).
[img]http:www.simviation.com/yabbuploads/h1gear.jpg[/img]
Above is shot of one of the gear legs; just about all of this was built from scratch over many thousands of hours of loving work...
[img]http:/www.simviation.com/yabbuploads/h1well.jpg[/img]
Look at this... every fastener is aligned the same way! They didn't have to do it that way, but they did anyway. Everything is perfect! These pictures do not really capture the magnificent craft and sheer passion this plane embodied.
[img]http:/www.simviation.com/yabbuploads/h1taxi.jpg[/img]
I didn't see the H1 fly that week, but I did wander over to the flight line one day just as Wright was coming back from a flight in his wonderful machine. Sadly, this plane and its creator were lost in a (still unexplained) accident on the way home from Oshkosh that summer. He tried to make an emergency landing in Yellowstone Park, and it did not turn out well. He was killed, and this priceless treasure was destroyed. Hope y'all enjoy having a look at this beauty...
