Douglas World Cruiser Redux
Any American who can fog a mirror will know the name of the airplane and aviator that first flew from New York to Paris nonstop, but the details of a perhaps more difficult accomplishment—first to fly all the way around the world—are known only to aviation buffs. The six-month voyage of two Douglas World Cruiser biplanes from Seattle to Seattle westbound in 1924 was overshadowed by Lindbergh’s epic solo just three years later. Retired Boeing avionics engineer Robert Dempster and his wife, Diane, herself a member of Boeing’s 737 team and also a pilot, now intend to fill at least some of that void.
Over the last decade, Bob Dempster and a small group of volunteer craftspeople have constructed a remarkably accurate replica of a Douglas World Cruiser, and the Dempsters plan to re-create the original 73-leg round-the-world feat starting early next April. (The airplane, Seattle II, made its maiden flight on June 29, at Boeing Field in Seattle.)
The original record flight was not only a technological milestone but also an organizational and logistical triumph, orchestrated by the U.S. Army Air Service. Some 30 spare engines, standby floats and wheeled landing gear—the World Cruisers would use both setups—plus fuel and support personnel were stationed all along the route, with U.S. Navy vessels spaced along the overwater legs. Four World Cruisers started the flight. One, Seattle, crashed in Alaska not long after the start of the epic journey, and Boston ditched in the North Atlantic four months later. (Both crews were rescued.) New Orleans and Chicago survived the entire circumnavigation, joined by the prototype, christened Boston II.
The Dempster Douglas is a triumph as well. Bob started the project with his and Diane’s own funds 10 years ago and only slowly acquired helpers and sponsors. The project has at times been homeless, shifting from hangar to friendly hangar, at one point ending up in a Boeing facility. With a 50-foot wingspan and towering to 15 feet on floats—even with the airplane on wheels, Dempster can stand under the nose—his airplane is, for a single-engine biplane, a monster. Gross weight is nearly four tons, making this one of the largest and heaviest homebuilts ever attempted.
Dempster’s only concessions to current technology are modern avionics; aluminum Edo floats with water rudders; a tailwheel rather than a skid for runway landings; and aircraft-grade fasteners, fittings, fuselage tubing and fabric. At one time, Dempster planned to use a modern engine in place of the original World Cruiser’s Liberty V-12, but his replica will be outfitted with a fully restored, Lincoln-built, 420-hp Liberty Model A for the trip. A gutsy move, since the original World Cruisers underwent complete engine changes in Japan and then India. See seattleworldcruiser.org.
-Stephan Wilkinson
A Tigercat Roars Again
The only reason to restore a Grumman F7F Tigercat is because itʼs so beautiful. The airplane was rejected as a carrier-borne fighter, the role for which it was de- signed. Too fast and large for anything but the Navyʼs Midway-class fleet carriers, it blew two carrier-qualification tests, one because of a bad tailhook design and dodgy single-engine handing, the next because a wing failed during a hard landing. Its entire combat career was brief and inconsequential; the only opponents that ever fell to a Tigercatʼs four .50s and four 20mm cannons—its nosecone was a broadside in a box—were two ancient Polikarpov Po-2 biplanes during the Korean War. The airplane stayed in service for barely 10 years, and not a single foreign air force ever used it. Even Grumman knew the Tigercat was a mistake, and it quickly engineered the F8F Bearcat to do what the Tigercat couldnʼt.
Never mind. Itʼs perhaps the most beautiful twin-pistonengine airplane ever built, every bit the equal of Geoffrey de Havillandʼs Comet, and for those who love the sound of one Pratt & Whitney R-2800, the trumpeting of two is twice as tingly.
Which, we have to assume, is why James Slattery has had WestPac Restorations renovate a good-as-new F7F-3N. He also owns a second Tigercat that will be restored by Steve Hintonʼs company, Fighter Rebuilders, and the two double-breasted felines will join a collection that already includes 44 historic aircraft. Slattery plans to soon open the Greatest Generation Naval Museum, in San Diego, to exhibit them.
His WestPac Tigercat is said to be the most unmolested of the dozen or so complete F7Fs that still exist—four on static display, the balance either airworthy or under restoration to flight status. Never flown in civil use, it was acquired in a trade directly from the Marine Corps Museum back when that was still possible. (The Navy has since then claimed ownership of everything it or the Marine Corps ever flew, including yet-undiscovered wrecks.) When WestPac started Bu. No. 80375ʼs engines late last April, it was the first time theyʼd been run in 60 years, back in the days when the airplane had been in service with the Marines as a two-seat night fighter with a RIO behind the pilot in a separate sliding-canopy cockpit.
-Stephan Wilkinson
Sikorsky Prize Goes to Canadians
After 33 years, the Igor I. Sikorsky Human Powered Heli- copter Challenge has at last been met. The American Helicopter Society’s requirements were rigorous: The machine had to fly for at least 60 seconds, rise to at least 3 meters and remain within a horizontal area no larger than 10 meters. On June 13, a team of young Canadian engineers known as AeroVelo, founded by Todd Reichert and Cameron Robertson, succeeded on all counts with their Atlas multicopter. Their flight lasted 64 seconds and reached 3.3 meters altitude.
Reichert and Robertson began the project with a Kickstarter bid that provided $30,000 toward an airframe. Altogether, they worked on the Atlas for 18 months. Though their bicycle-powered helicopter weighs only 122 pounds, it’s larger than most commercial aircraft, with four sets of rotors that are each 66 feet in diameter. Reichert supplied pedal-power for the winning performance in June, though Robertson pointed out in a radio interview that each flight involves a crew of 10 assistants on the ground.
The successful June 13 flight, which took place inside a Toronto soccer center, came at the very end of five days of testing. Once both the American Helicopter Society and the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale certified the results of that effort, AeroVelo received a $250,000 check in July.
Spurring on the Canadians’ bid were the efforts of an American team. The University of Maryland’s Gamera helicopter had already succeeded in meeting Sikorsky’s altitude and duration requirements, but struggled to achieve the control needed to stay within the specified horizontal area during flights. As Cameron Robertson said in the radio interview, late in the competition both teams were avidly following each other’s Twitter feeds to keep abreast of the latest results. He noted, “It was incredible how neck-and-neck it was at the end.” For more on AeroVelo’s Atlas and the winning flight, see aerovelo.com.
-Nan Siegel
Germany Retires Its Last Phantom
On June 29 Germany became the latest— but by no means the last—country to retire its McDonnell-Douglas F-4F Phan- tom II fighter-bombers, after 41 years of service. Of the 263 Phantoms used by the Luftwaffe, two-thirds served in the ground support role and one-third in reconnaissance.
The F-4 has been undergoing a phasing-out process in a number of air arms. In 2010 South Korea retired the last of its 222 Phantoms, culminating 15 years of progressive replacement with 40 F-15Ks and 140 F-16s. Nevertheless, some air arms are not yet prepared to give up on the unprepossessing but rugged, reliable welterweight. Iran, which bought 225 F-4s in the 1970s, kept its planes flying throughout its 1982-88 war with Iraq, in spite of international sanctions, by smuggling and home manufacture of less sophisticated components, and several dozen remain operational today. Roughly 8 percent of the 5,195 F-4s built are still in service, and may well remain so into the Phantom’s 60th year.
Originally published in the November 2013 issue of Aviation History. To subscribe, click here.
