| RB-1 Racer | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Role | Racing aircraft Type of aircraft |
| Manufacturer | Dayton-Wright |
| Designer | Howard Max Rinehart,Milton C. Baumann, Charles Hampson Grant[1] |
| First flight | 1920 |
| Number built | 1 |
| Variants | Dayton-Wright XPS-1 |
TheDayton-Wright RB-1 (Rinehart[note 1] Baumann[note 2] model one), also known simply as theDayton-Wright Racer was a high wing single-enginemonoplane racing aircraft developed in the United States to participate in the 1920Gordon Bennett Cup air race.
The RB-1 was a high-wing monoplane with amonocoquefuselage and cantilever wing built around a solidbalsa wood corelaminated withplywood and covered inlinen that incorporated a mechanism designed by Charles Hampson Grant to vary itscamber in flight by adjusting the angles of the leading and trailing edges, with thetrailing edge being aplain flap, and the leading edge functioning similarly. The aircraft also featured a retractable undercarriage operated by a hand-crank making it one of the first instances of undercarriage retraction for aerodynamic benefit alone.[2]The propeller shaft was mounted through a large oval radiator. The pilot had no forward view, but was provided with flexible celluloid side windows. Cockpit access was through a hatch in the top of the fuselage.[3]A prototype was built using non-retractable gear and strut-braced wings. A shorter tapered "racing wing" was installed afterward with leading and trailing edge flaps interconnected withlanding gear deployment. The mechanisms and hinges for the wing flaps were exposed across the top of the solid wing. The racing wing produced directional instability requiring small tail fins to be added.[4]
Dismantled and shipped to France, the RB-1 was flown by Howard Rinehart in the 28 September 1920 race, but was forced to withdraw after a cable failure prevented retraction of the gear/flap mechanism,[4][5] allowing the twoNieuport-Delage NiD.29V racers to make a one-two finish.[6]After the race it was returned to the United States, and is now preserved at theHenry Ford Museum inDearborn, Michigan. Many of the aircraft's advanced features were incorporated into a prototype fighter, theXPS-1.
Data from 1921 Aircraft Yearbook
General characteristics
Performance
Related development
Aircraft of comparable role, configuration, and era
Related lists
