Haven't seen Mendenhall's book in years--I may even have a copy somewhere--but as I remember it was largely a collection of poorly-drawn three-views, and I think it consisted of three relatively thin, boxed, softcover volumes. Not recommended.
Steve Wittman was ahead of his time in many areas of aircraft design. His Buttercup design, though not a racer, is particularly interesting for its low drag innovations and wide speed range LuceAir ~ The Homebuilt Rag & Tube Aircraft Experts
One more book, "The Golden Age of Air Racing" by S.H. Schmid and truman C.Weaver. Quite a lot of 3views and lots and lots of text. Bought it many years ago, and it is still lying under my bed.
Hey, Thanks guys for all your input pls keep it coming. I am particularly interested in the Laird Super Solution. If u hv any pics, info etc it is all welcome.
I too have been interested in Early racing aircraft and in particular Matty Lairds Super Solution. Have you seen pictures of the recently built flying replica?
Sometimes there are images available on the web, but the text describing the images are misleading, incorrect, mislabeled. There's a whole collection of newspaper photos, from the 1920's & 1930's, from now-dead newspapers, with no funding to permit correcting the inaccurate labels.
Below is one of the few images of a Curtiss Racer [1923], with pilot A.J. Williams. The course flown for the Pulitzer Race was around multiple pylons; newspapers quote speeds over straight sections of the course.
The open cockpit presented pilots with airflow-buffet -- ripping the leather helmet, and vibrating the goggles so badly that the human's vision was continuously distorted while at high speed. [Williams described his problems seeing the course & turns, and the damaged helmets, in the Globe-Democrat newspaper (stories accompanying this photo).]
Interesting that these RACING military pilots, were only in active-military status for the racing opportunity -- AJ Williams (initially an athlete and lawyer) later quit the Navy, and was a test pilot for Shell Oil during the 1930's, with several famous tests: AERONAUTICS: Flights & Flyers: Mar. 17, 1930 - TIME
From Aircraft Year Book 1924, Aeronautical Chamber of commerce of America, photograph inserted facing pg 150,
“Navy-Curtiss Racer in which Lieut. A. J. Williams won the Pulitzer Race at 243.68 m.p.h. Later Lieut. Williams established a new world record of 266.6 m.p.h. for three kilometers straightaway. – photo, U.S. Navy.”
page 158:
“… Navy Pulitzer Pilots … A.J. Williams; Navy-Curtiss Racer in background …”
“brilliant sunshine of Saturday, October 6th [1923]– the day of the Pulitzer classic …”
Image # GDGPS0304,
University of Missouri Digital Library.
_Globe-Democrat_ Collection
FROM THE COLLECTIONS OF THE MERCANTILE LIBRARY
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-ST. LOUIS. St. Louis Globe Democrat Collection Home
Having flown plenty of open-cockpit airplanes, I suspect the "helmet-ripping" buffet supposedly described by Al Williams is as fanciful and warped by the newspaper as were the captions you describe.
Williams' career extended well beyond the 1930s. He flew a Grumman F8F Bearcat airshow PR airplane in the '50s.
