Let Let Let – Warplanes

The American racers

In the 1923 Schneider Cup race at Cowes in the U.K., American planes and pilots participated for the first time. Lt. Frank Wead had to withdrawn in his Navy-Wright TR-3A racer, but Lt. David Rittenhouse and Lt. Rutledge Irvine won the race very convincingly at first and second place with a speed margin of some 35 km/h over no. 3, the Supermarine Sea Lion III. Instead of the usual small high-powered flying boats of the earlier events they entered the race in a totally new Curtiss floatplane racer fitted with a Curtiss D-12 engine of 465 hp. Designated as the CR-3, they were in fact not totally new, but further improved racers already used on earlier occasions in the U.S.A. as a landplane fitted with wheels. The CR-3 was a biplane with braced wings fitted with flush-type surface radiators fitted in the upper wings. Two CR-3′s were built, carrying the serial numbers A-3080 and A-3081. The U.S. Navy sponsored planes were entered in the race carrying the racing numbers 3 and 4 on the rudder and fuselage.

After the success of the CR-3, Curtiss converted a more developed and aerodynamically refined landplane racer, the R2C-1 into a Schneider Cup racer on floats as the R2C-2. It was specially built for the 1924 race in the U.S.A. but since this was cancelled the R2C-2 was never entered. Instead, it served as a trainer for the next year event in 1925. For this race, Curtiss had converted three new R3C-1 landplane racers into Schneider Cup floatplane racers. Three R3C-1′s were built, carrying the registrations A6978, A6979 and A7054. All three were converted with floats for the Schneider Cup, and all were finally entered in the race at Baltimore. A6978, carrying race number 3, was flown by U.S. Army pilot Lt. James Doolittle. A6979 and A7054, carrying race numbers 2 and 1, were flown by U.S. Navy pilots Lt. George Cuddihy and Lt. Ralph Ofstie. The R3C-2 was fitted with a 600 hp Curtiss V-1400 engine, driving big two-bladed Reed aluminium propellers. Doolittle won the 1925 race with a large margin over the second plane, the British Gloster III flown by Hubert Broad. The other two R3C-2′s had to retire during the race.

In the 1926 race at Hampton Road, one R3C-2 (no. A6978) was again entered in the race, flown by Lt. Frank Schilt. He finished second behind the Macchi M.39 monoplane racer flown by Mario de Bernardi. An improved version of the third R3C-2 no. A7054 was also entered this year, but it crashed already during the preliminary trials. It was evident the time of the biplane racer was over…….

For the 1927 race, both U.S Army and U. S Navy didnot give any support for new racers since it was evident the Curtiss racers were at the peak of their development and the design of new monoplane racers was not a priority any longer because of their extreme costs. Fortunately a group of interested businessmen were prepared to raise some $100,000 for the design and construction of a new competitive racing machine. Based on the ideas of racing pilot Al Williams, former Curtiss employee Charles Kirkham designed and built in his newly established workshop at Long Island, New York a wooden biplane racer largely based on the Curtiss racers. Packard supplied a new and very powerful liquid-cooled engine for this project: the Packard X-2775 engine of 1250 hp. In fact this engine consisted of two 625 hp Packard V-1500 V-12 engines coupled with a mutual crankcase with one part upright and the other one inverted to form a 24-cylinder X-type engine with four rows of six cylinders. In this form, the new Kirkham-William racer as it was called was the most powerful biplane racer ever built for the Schneider Cup event. The racing team was, however, not very lucky with the new racer since its had only accumulated very flew flying hours before the race in Venice. They asked the organizing committee for a time extension, but because this was not granted the entry for the race had to be withdrawn. It was later converted to a landplane with a fixed wheel undercarriage and manage to set a new world-speed record of 519 km/h but this record was never officially recognized.

After the failure of the Kirkham-Williams biplaneracer to perform in the 1927 Schneider Cup race, the Americans made a last attempt for the 1929 race at Calshot, U.K. The original biplane racer was totally redesigned into a mid-wing monoplane racer with an even more powerful Packard X-2775 engine producing 1500 hp. It was named Mercury I. The work was done by the Naval Aircraft Factory at Philadelphia under great secrecy. Racing Pilot Al Williams was again a leading individual in this project. Great care was taken for aerodynamic shaping of the racer using wind-tunnel data from tests with scale models and the result was an extremely good-looking racer. Upon completion, Al Williams did the initial flight-testing with the lower rated engine from the biplane racer near the Santee Wharf of the Annapolis Military Academy. Because the both floats were buried very deep in the water, and the torque of the big Packard engine produced a tendency for the left wing to dig into the water he hardly managed to become airborne in the plane because the use of full rudder and ailerons to keep the plane on a straight course produced too much drag. He was also troubled by water spray hitting the propeller and fuselage. He finally managed to make a short hop with the Mercury but because of a fuel pressure drop he had to land on the water again, resulting in a bending propeller. In spite of these problems, the Mercury was a very promising type and the disappointment of Williams group must have been great when the U.S. Navy declined a request to transport the Mercury by vessel to the U.K! They had no other choice than withdrawing their entry in the race….

The French racers

Related posts:

1. Tangmere Military Aviation Museum
2. Caudron C.460 Rafale replica presented at Le Bourget
3. Vickers Supermarine Type 381 Seagull ASR-1
4. Dutch flying boats and amphibians

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