Breese-Dallas Model 1

The Breese-Dallas Model 1 was a prototype single engine airliner that rapidly changed hands throughout the 1930s. It was also known as the Michigan Aircraft Company Model 1, and the Lambert Model 1344.

Design and development

Vance Breese partnered with Detroit auto salesman, Charles Dallas to produce a modern, transcontinental, all-metal construction cargo aircraft. The aircraft was engineered by Art Mankey with some part-time design work by Jerry Vultee, who would go on to develop a slightly larger concept called the Vultee V-1.^[1]

The aircraft is a six-passenger, all-metal, single-engine, low-wing monoplane with hydraulically retractable conventional landing gear. The center fuselage is welded steel tubing. The cockpit used a spilt forward slanting windshield popular on large aircraft of the period, with rearward sliding canopy panels over the pilots. There is a large passenger doorway just behind the right wing. The aircraft was constructed around an eight-inch steel tube jig that was removed after assembly. The first engine used was sourced from a Boeing P-12E from Selfridge Field using a NACA cowling. Four small passenger windows were expanded for better visibility. The engine was upgraded in 1936 to a 800 hp (597 kW) Pratt & Whitney SRB-1535 with additional fuel capacity of 400 U.S. gallons (1,500 L; 330 imp gal) total.^[2]

Operational history

Construction of the Model 1 started in September 1932. The first flight was performed by Vance Breese and Frederick Coe.

• 1933, on May 1 the aircraft was sold to a new company formed by Charles Dallas, and F.A. Culver called the Michigan Aircraft Company. The model 1 was renamed the Michigan Aircraft Company Model 1 on 7 June.^[3]
• 1934, registrations for the aircraft were usually only for a few months for testing, the aircraft was sold regularly with new temporary registration. The Model 1 was sold to the Dallas owned Select Motor Sales, and again in March to Charles Dallas for testing, and once more to the Lambert Aircraft Corporation where it was registered as the Lambert Model 1344, and sold right back again to Select Motor Sales.
• 1935 the aircraft was sold again, back to Vance Breese who proposed the aircraft as a bomber for the Jack Holt and Christy Cabanne Universal Studios movie Storm over the Andes.^[4] Breese prepared the aircraft for the Bendix Trophy race but did not enter that year.
• 1936 The aircraft was sold to Jacqueline Cochran in October for use in the 1936 Bendix Race. Pilot Wes Smith performed a gear up landing on orders from Cochran's husband Floyd Odlum.^[5]
• 1937 Cochran sold the aircraft to Paul Mantz's Union Air Services in January, and it was immediately re-registered for Mexico. The Model 1 was crashed outside of Mexico City by ferry pilot Cloyd Peart Clevenger on 10 January 1937. It was being delivered for use by Col Roberto Fierro in the Spanish Civil War. Clevenger was later jailed for smuggling planes in violation of the United States Neutrality Act.^[6]

Specifications (Model 1)

Data from skyways

General characteristics

• Crew: 1
• Capacity: 5
• Length: 28 ft 4 in (8.64 m)
• Wingspan: 40 ft (12 m)
• Gross weight: 4,750 lb (2,155 kg)
• Fuel capacity: 110 U.S. gallons (420 L; 92 imp gal)
• Powerplant: 1 × Pratt & Whitney SD-1 Wasp , 500 hp (370 kW)
• Propellers: 2-bladed

Performance

• Maximum speed: 215 kn; 398 km/h (247 mph)
• Cruise speed: 182 kn; 338 km/h (210 mph)
• Stall speed: 50 kn; 92 km/h (57 mph)

See also

Aircraft of comparable role, configuration and era

• Vultee V-1

References

External links

• Image of the Breese-Dallas aircraft