Chief Oshkosh

Air Classics, Jun 2001 by Stanton, Jim

I enjoyed the article about Chief Oshkosh and have enclosed a few comments about the article.

The pictures are from the 1936 Los Angeles crash. If you look closely at the lower picture you can see that the landing gear is the multi-leaf spring with a fairing over the upper portion. This gear was replaced in 1937 with a single leaf gear without a fairing. In the 1938 Oakland crash, the Chief flipped over and folded the vertical tail flat against the right horizontal.

Amazingly, the Chief raced at Detroit just two weeks after the LA crash. Wittman did not land on top of the A-17 but did take off a prop blade and the antenna mast from the A-17. During 1946, the Chief was first rebuilt into a sport plane with a 55- or 65-hp Lycoming. The second set of Chief wings was modified and utilized. In 1947, the plane was rebuilt into Buster.

Chief had four sets of wings: 1931, 18 ft 10 in; 1934, 15 ft 5 in; 1936, 14 ft 6 in 1937, 12 ft 5 in.

One set of Chief wings is hanging in the rafters of the Wittman Hangar at the EAA Museum. Another set is on a Chief replica at the Sun 'n Fun Museum. This replica also has many other parts from the original Chief. Wittman held patents on the flat spring gear, the round spring gear, and a leading edge flap. Copies of the gear drawings and original patent are displayed at the EAA.

I am nearing completion of my third Wittman Tailwind. I have reserved N14855 for this aircraft. This is the 1936 and later number on Chief/Buster except the racers used an R prefix.

With the intense interest in replica racers of the 1930s, these aircraft are certainly not forgotten. I would like to see you change the name of your articles to "Golden Age Air Racers." Hope we can look forward to future articles on the Bonzo and the Popjoy which was recently restored by Bill Turner.

Jim Stanton POB 3232 Chinle, AZ, 86503