Howard Hughes H-1 Racer

The Aviator | 'H-1 Racer Plane’ - Leonardo DiCaprio
I saw this movie when it came out back in 2004. It was pretty great. I saw this clip on YouTube and I think 'that's a pretty cool airplane'. And then I notice that in some scenes the aircraft has an open cockpit and in others it has a canopy, so I have to investigate.


Jim Wright 'Hughes H-1 Racer' replica speed record attempt
Seems that one Jim Wright of Cottage Grove Oregon built a replica of Hughes H-1 Racer, and the movie makers were planing on using it in the film, but then Jim, while flying back from the annual EAA fly-in in Oshkosh Wisconsin, crashed and died.

Half-scale model of H-1 Racer at El Mirage

Movie production is already underway, and the H-1 is a featured player, so they have a problem. Enter Joe Bok with his R/C aircraft company. He puts together a half-scale H-1 and they use that for the flying scenes. I don't know what they used for the taxi scenes. An H-1 mockup put together by the prop department?

P.S. I just put it together that Howard was flying an open cockpit airplane at 350 miles per hour. That's just nuts.