Loving WR-1 Love

Last updated
WR-1 Love
LovingsLove.jpg
The WR-1 on display
General information
Type Racing aircraft
National originUnited States
Manufacturer Wayne Aircraft Company
Designer
Neil Loving
History
First flight7 August 1950 [1]

The Loving/Wayne WR-1 Love is a single seat, midget racer built in the 1950s. [2]

Contents

Design and development

The WR-1 is a single place, gull-winged aircraft with conventional landing gear. The fuselage uses wood truss construction with aircraft fabric covering. The all-wood, plywood covered gull-wing features faired, fixed landing gear at the lowest point. The design was submitted and approved by the professional racing pilots association in 1948 with construction starting in January 1949. [3]

Operational history

In the 1951 National Air Races pilot Neal Vernon Loving qualified with a 266 mph (428 km/h) dive. The aircraft's spinner separated, damaging the propeller. [4]

In December 1953, Loving flew the WR-1 2200 miles from Detroit to Kingston, Jamaica, an unusually long trip for a new experimental design of the era. [5]

In 1954, the design was the winner of the Most Outstanding Design award at the Experimental Aircraft Association Fly-in at Rockford, Illinois.

Specifications (WR-1)

Data from EAA, Air Trails

General characteristics

Performance

References

  1. Betty Kaplan Gubert; Miriam Sawyer; Caroline M. Fannin. Distinguished African Americans in Aviation and Space Science. p. 202.
  2. Air Trails: 78. Winter 1971.{{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  3. "Loving/Wayne WR-1" . Retrieved 2 September 2013.
  4. Charlie Cooper; Ann Cooper. Tuskegee's Heroes. p. 33.
  5. Experimenter. June 1954.{{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)