Little Toni
to Cleveland in just a few months for what was then the ultimate in sporting aviation. Some of the 13 midget racers that showed up on the west side of Cleveland in late August 1947 for the first of three annual Goodyear Trophy Races looked like they had been assembled under considerable time pressure. Others looked much more professional, and none more so than the twin all-metal Cosmic Winds owned and f lown by top Lockheed test pilots Tony LeVier (#3 Little Toni, NX-67888) and Herman “Fish” Salmon (#10 Cosmic Wind, NX-67889). As was later revealed when two of the racers became the passion of British restorers, they were far more complex than what became the norm for typical homebuilts. As would be expected from a team of Lockheed designers who volunteered their time, and laid-off production workers who were paid 50 cents an hour, LeVier & Asso-
Little Toni
Cosmic Wind
ciates’ airplanes displayed a part number stenciled on ever y one of many hundreds of large and small metal pieces. Anyone who has seen a Cassutt r acer being built from simple plans and basic workshop tools can be excused for expressing amazement. Also in a manner familiar to industry people, the major components were built in separated locations, with a single location for final assembly, in this case LeVier’s garage in the Los Angeles suburb of La Canada. It was later discovered that the origins of the sophisticated design actually dated back to World War II. One blueprint examined by this writer showed the fuel tank installation. All the relevant stations of the fuselage were clearly marked, strongly suggesting that much of the design work had been completed. The blueprint, drawn by one Mr. Bojens (later identified by LeVier as Lockheed’s “top draftsman”), was dated 1944, at
least two years before the class was created. It is tempting to assume that the Cosmic Wind might have been under consideration by Lockheed as a high-performance sports plane that would appeal to returning fighter pilots. In the 1947 initial Goodyear Trophy Race, the two Cosmic Winds were outrun by racers designed and built by prewar National Air Races winners Steve Wittman and Art Chester. One of the reasons was the failure of an otherwise excellent team of engineers to calculate correctly the center of gravity. Both Winds were so tail heavy that a reported 75 pounds of dead weight had to be wrapped around the engine mounts to make them flyable. By the next year, the mounts had been extended 12 inches, and the original canopy, which had been faired into a high turtledeck, had been replaced by a low-drag bubble, which paid off in a victory by Salmon in what had become his #4 Minnow.
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