NGC - I feel this, living here. Aviation - Cleveland played a big part

[ohiorider]

Cleveland - Mistake on the lake.  I don't think so.  Especially after watching video about Corsairs built in Akron. And realizing the history Cleveland played in the Thompson and Bendix races.  Here's a video about Corsairs with the big 28 cylinder engine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMtwNCwxxwg

[RinkRat II]

    Cool Video, Thanks    I like John Little's tie

        Paul B

[oldbike54]

 

 Dusty

[PhilB]

Yep, there's a lot of history in the cities in the middle of the U.S., if you look for it.  But you kind of have to look for it; it isn't well advertised.
I've been enjoying, for the last few years, getting to know the rest of the country better.  I grew up in CA, and live in New England now.
But in the last several years I've had work projects that let me spend a few weeks or months each in Cleveland, St. Louis, Kansas City, Ft Collins, Houston, and now Minneapolis.  All cool places with great stuff if you look.

St Louis had a LOT of great places.  On the aviation theme of your thread, St. Louis was a major center in early aviation.  There's a restoration facility at the Creve Coeur airfield there that has about 6 hangars full of aircraft built mostly between WWI and WWII, much of it locally made.

PhilB

[Rough Edge racing]

 The Wright Bros from Ohio, Glenn Curtiss from a tiny Finger Lakes NY town...Cleveland also has the Roll and Roll museum...

[Chuck in Indiana]

I've actually *been* to the Cleveland air races.. 

[AJ Huff]

John Glenn space center in is Cleveland. That's kinda aviation related 

-AJ

[Zoom Zoom]

Cool video. Thanks Bob. As I understand it, there were 10 fixed wing and 10 folding wing Corsairs produced with the corn cob engine, although I don't know if that is truly correct. In any event, there was one of the fixed wing variants sitting [mostly] intact in an airplane junkyard in Newbury, Ohio, still painted in racing colors. I don't know where the plane finally went but the guy that had the place in Newbury has since passed and the junkyard is no more. There were also 2 P-82's in this place, one of which was the second prototype and the first to ever fly. There was a great article in an aviation magazine, (Thanks Chuck), telling the story of this particular airplane.

John Henry

[Lannis]

I've actually *been* to the Cleveland air races.. 

Did you actually get to see Jimmy Doolittle win the Thompson Trophy race in his Gee-Bee R1?   Two-hundred fifty MPH average, I'll bet that was a sight, you lucky dog you ...

Lannis

[Chuck in Indiana]

Did you actually get to see Jimmy Doolittle win the Thompson Trophy race in his Gee-Bee R1?   Two-hundred fifty MPH average, I'll bet that was a sight, you lucky dog you ...

Lannis

No, but I *have* met Jimmy.  Certainly one of the finest pilots ever.

[Roebling3]

There's a GB Racer hanging at the Museum for Industry, in a beautiful complex of Museums in Springfield, MA. Wonderful place to visit. An air museum, not far away is in Windsor Locks, CT.  There is also the town of Granville, MA. Great riding out that way, as is the rest of western MA & CT, plus VT, et. al.  R3~

[ohiorider]

Cool video. Thanks Bob. As I understand it, there were 10 fixed wing and 10 folding wing Corsairs produced with the corn cob engine, although I don't know if that is truly correct. In any event, there was one of the fixed wing variants sitting [mostly] intact in an airplane junkyard in Newbury, Ohio, still painted in racing colors. I don't know where the plane finally went but the guy that had the place in Newbury has since passed and the junkyard is no more. There were also 2 P-82's in this place, one of which was the second prototype and the first to ever fly. There was a great article in an aviation magazine, (Thanks Chuck), telling the story of this particular airplane.

John Henry

ZZ, from what I've been able to ascertain, Goodyear built 10 (in total) Corsairs powered by the the 28 cylinder Pratt and Whitney 4360.  Perhaps another constructor built some additional planes.

What a beast that must have been, with 3000 hp in the nose!

Bob

Bob

[ohiorider]

No, but I *have* met Jimmy.  Certainly one of the finest pilots ever.

To see Doolittle fly the R1 would have been a bit before your time, I think.  I'm thinking that would have taken place in the 1932 period.  Have you guys seen videos of Delmar Benjamin's flights in his reproduction of the R1?  Some lovely flying, and aerobatics that one would never have expected of a Thompson Trophy Racer.

Bob

[Lannis]

To see Doolittle fly the R1 would have been a bit before your time, I think.

Ya think? 

Lannis (It's, I say, it's a joke, son ...  )

[AJ Huff]

If you want to go beyond Cleveland, Ohio has the Wright Brothers, John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell, Wright Patterson Air Force Base (and Museum), Waco gliders were built in OH. That's just off the top of my head. I grew up in Ohio.

-AJ

[blackcat]

Sort of related, my mom and aunt worked for an awning company in Cleveland before the war sewing residential and commercial cloth awnings, but once the war started the company got a contract to sew parachutes. My mom was very proud of her work in the war effort.

[Chuck in Indiana]

To see Doolittle fly the R1 would have been a bit before your time, I think.  I'm thinking that would have taken place in the 1932 period.  Have you guys seen videos of Delmar Benjamin's flights in his reproduction of the R1?  Some lovely flying, and aerobatics that one would never have expected of a Thompson Trophy Racer.

Bob

Yeah, I've sat in that airplane and seen it fly many times. 
The back story about my involvement with early air racers. My friend Ed the Rocket Scientist was taken to raise by Matty and Elsie Laird. Matty was a gifted airplane designer..flew his own design when he was a teenager.. (!) and race plane designer/aircraft manufacturer during the "Golden Age" of aviation. Many people got their start there that are now household names in the aviation world. Claude Cessna, Lloyd Stearman, to name a couple off the top of my head.
Naturally the air race people were a close knit society, and everyone knew the Lairds.
Ed was instrumental in building the Laird Super Solution replica that lives in the EAA museum. He planned to fly it, and was totally POed when the EAA said it was too valuable to risk in flight. At any rate, the EAA took a picture of Jimmy and Ed with the Super Solution, and that's where I met him. Ed also introduced me to many of the surviving people of that day. This was in the early 80s. Of course, they are all gone west now.
https://www.fantasyofflight.com/collection/aircraft/currently-not-showing-in-museum/golden-age/1931-laird-super-solution/

[ohiorider]

Yeah, I've sat in that airplane and seen it fly many times. 
The back story about my involvement with early air racers. My friend Ed the Rocket Scientist was taken to raise by Matty and Elsie Laird. Matty was a gifted airplane designer..flew his own design when he was a teenager.. (!) and race plane designer/aircraft manufacturer during the "Golden Age" of aviation. Many people got their start there that are now household names in the aviation world. Claude Cessna, Lloyd Stearman, to name a couple off the top of my head.
Naturally the air race people were a close knit society, and everyone knew the Lairds.
Ed was instrumental in building the Laird Super Solution replica that lives in the EAA museum. He planned to fly it, and was totally POed when the EAA said it was too valuable to risk in flight. At any rate, the EAA took a picture of Jimmy and Ed with the Super Solution, and that's where I met him. Ed also introduced me to many of the surviving people of that day. This was in the early 80s. Of course, they are all gone west now.
https://www.fantasyofflight.com/collection/aircraft/currently-not-showing-in-museum/golden-age/1931-laird-super-solution/

Wonderful story, Chuck.  Thanks for posting it.

Bob

[Zoom Zoom]

I have to say Bob, GREAT POST! There has been some really fascinating conversation come out of this.

Chuck, great read on the Super Solution as well.

Here here

John Henry

[Chuck in Indiana]

I have to say Bob, GREAT POST! There has been some really fascinating conversation come out of this.

Chuck, great read on the Super Solution as well.

Here here

John Henry

Thanks, ZZ. I always wondered how big your cajones had to be to fly the Super Solution.. so spent some time with Jim Moss, (RIP) the builder of the one in Kermit's museum, when he brought it to Oshkosh one year. I'd already known him from when I was building the Great Lakes, and he had built one, too..so I had bent his ear about that a few years before.
He said, "You have a Pitts S1S, don't you?" (Great memory for an old guy..)    "If you are comfortable in an S1S, you could fly this airplane." (!) "Part of the way air race pilots made their living was to say how demanding those ships were to fly.." 
Of course, he was probably being modest.. several pilots went West trying to fly Bendix, Thompson racers, etc.
But.
As I said in the last post, Matty was a gifted designer. Jim said it flew "normally.." Some racers didn't.  He test flew it out of his tree surrounded fairly short grass strip, and decided to make his first landing at a long paved strip a few miles away because of the restricted visibility. After that, he flew it out of his private strip. (!) Quite an airplane..

[ohiorider]

I have to say Bob, GREAT POST! There has been some really fascinating conversation come out of this.

Chuck, great read on the Super Solution as well.

Here here

John Henry

Danke, ZZ!

Bob

[Gnirwin]

Been to the air races in Cleveland also many years ago being a life long Ohio resident. I never could figure out why all the negative about the city of Cleveland other than the fact the sports teams sucked..ha..But many things about the city are very cool. Long history of MFG with many famous people and companies started in the area.

[Zoom Zoom]

A large part of the negativity came from the mercury found in the fish in Lake Erie at the time, and the Cuyahoga River catching fire, both a result of pollution. Thankfully that has changed for the better.

John Henry 

[ohiorider]

A large part of the negativity came from the mercury found in the fish in Lake Erie at the time, and the Cuyahoga River catching fire, both a result of pollution. Thankfully that has changed for the better.

John Henry

Lake Erie ...... from what it was then to the "Walleye Capitol of the World."  Anyway, that's what we call it.

Bob