Hughes H-1 Racer
The Hughes H-1 Racer is a one-off American racing monoplane built for Howard Hughes in 1935 to be the fastest landplane in the world. Hughes flew it to a world speed record of 352 mph in September 1935 and nonstop across the United States in under seven and a half hours in January 1937. Its flush-riveted skin, retractable landing gear and two interchangeable wing sets made it a landmark of drag reduction, and the original aircraft is now held by the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.
Why It Mattered
Howard Hughes built the H-1 Racer with a single aim: to be the fastest landplane in the world. On 13 September 1935 he flew it to a new world speed record of 352 miles per hour at Santa Ana, California. In January 1937 he flew it nonstop across the United States in 7 hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds, a transcontinental record that stood until 1946. Its deeper significance was technical: the Smithsonian calls the H-1 a milestone on the road to the radial-engine fighters of the Second World War. Hughes later claimed that Japan's Zero fighter had been copied from the H-1; the Zero's designer strongly denied it, and the claim remains contested.
Design Notes
The H-1 was designed by Hughes and engineer Richard Palmer and built by Glenn Odekirk, with drag reduction pursued in every detail. A Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp Junior radial engine sat inside a close-fitting, bell-shaped cowling shaped to cut drag while improving cooling. All rivets and joints were flush with the polished aluminum skin, and the landing gear retracted so completely that its doors are barely visible without close inspection. The wings were plywood-covered, their screws countersunk flush, and they came in two sets: a short set spanning 25 feet for speed flights, and a long set spanning 31 feet 9 inches for the transcontinental run.
Operational History
Work began in 1934 in a shed in Glendale, California. The aircraft was finished on 10 August 1935, and Hughes made the first flight on 17 August. That first flight lasted only 15 minutes, cut short by a propeller problem. On 13 September 1935, over a timed course near Santa Ana, Hughes set the world landplane speed record at 352 miles per hour. Attempting extra passes, he exhausted the fuel and brought the racer down in a wheels-up belly landing in a beet field; the record stood. Hughes then had the longer wings, extra fuel capacity and navigation equipment fitted for a transcontinental attempt. On 19 January 1937 he flew from Los Angeles to Newark in 7 hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds, averaging 332 miles per hour over the 2,490-mile course. Hughes had hoped the Army Air Corps would adopt the design as a fast pursuit plane, but the service deemed none of the proposals in its pursuit competition acceptable, and no military version followed. After the Newark flight, Hughes never flew the H-1 again.
Afterlife
The H-1 was kept at the Hughes factory in Culver City, California, and had flown only 40.5 hours in total when Hughes donated it to the Smithsonian Institution in 1975. It then remained on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington for more than four decades. It is now displayed, disassembled in separate jigs, at the museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia, while curators plan to reassemble it. The design has been recreated in full: Jim Wright built an exact reproduction in the long-wing configuration, but he was lost in a crash at Yellowstone National Park in 2003, flying home from Oshkosh.