Wedell-Williams 44

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Wedell-Williams 44
Model 44 Miss Patterson
Type: Racing plane
Design country:
Manufacturer:

Wedell-Williams Air Service

First flight:

1930

The Wedell-Williams 44 was an aircraft produced by the US manufacturer Wedell-Williams Air Service Corp. based in Patterson, Louisiana .

development

It was a single-engine, single-seat, braced low- wing aircraft with a fixed, faired tail landing gear, which had been specially built for speed races. The aircraft was based on a 1930 design that took part in the Thompson Trophy race with a Wright J6-7 as a drive . After a thorough revision, an improved version came out that same year. A total of four other similar machines were built by Wedell-Williams from 1931. They were marked NR61Y, NR238V, NR536V and NR278V. The wooden wings with a thickness of only 5% had a V-position of 3 ° and were attached to short stubs of the cell, which was made of welded steel tubes. The front part of the fuselage was planked with dural sheet metal. The rear part, like the tail unit made of tubular steel, was covered with fabric. The driver's seat, located just behind the wing's trailing edge, was covered with a hood. The engine had a NACA hood as fairing.

The NR278V, powered by a Pratt & Whitney R-985 , took second place in the 1931 Thompson Trophy race. The machine had the starting number 44, which then led to the type designation Wedell-Williams 44. In 1932, aircraft of this design won the Bendix Trophy and a second place in the Thompson Trophy. Mary Haizlip attempted a record with such a machine on September 5, 1932 in Cleveland, Ohio, and set a new world speed record for women at 405.92 km / h. She followed in Amelia Earhart's footsteps . In 1933 the Thompson Trophy could be won. After installing a Pratt & Whiney R-1340 engine with 800 hp, on September 4, 1933, James Wedell in Chicago set a new world speed record for land aircraft with 490.080 km / h. In 1933, the Bendix Trophy even achieved a double victory, and in 1934 the Bendix Trophy again went to a Wedell-Williams 44. Equipped with an even more powerful Pratt & Whitney R-1690 , a second place in the Bendix Trophy could be achieved again in 1935. The aircraft was no longer competitive with more modern types. On the basis of the Model 44, Wendell also designed the Wedell-Williams 45 with retractable landing gear , which started at the American Air Races in New Orleans in February 1934 , but was largely unsuccessful.

Technical data (racing version)

Three-sided view
Parameter Data
span 7.97 m
length 6.48 m
Empty mass 685 kg
Takeoff mass 1006 kg
Engine Pratt & Whitney R-985 with 550 PS (405 kW)

literature

  • Erich H. Heimann, The fastest aircraft in the world , Motorbuchverlag 1978, ISBN 3-87943-540-5

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b FAI record, number 8750. (No longer available online.) In: fai.org. Archived from the original on October 2, 2016 ; accessed on January 8, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.fai.org