Vultee V-1

It's interesting that deaftom would mention that ping pong balls fell out of the aeroplane when it was restored. Not quite accurate, I'm afraid. The aeroplane in the Virginia Aviation Museum is Serial Number 25 and was originally owned by William Randolph Hearst. The 'ping pong' ship was Serial Number 8 and was flown by Dick Merrill to London and return in 1936. It was destroyed in Spain many years later. The aeroplane in Richmond was owned by the late Sidney L. Shannon, Jr. and displayed (and flown) at his Shannon Air Museum in Fredericksburg, Va. I was, at the time, the chief pilot for the Shannon museum and flew the aeroplane approximately 120 hours over a three year period. Lovely old aeroplane that has not flown since approximately 1981.

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In it's day this was a very fast and very advanced airliner. Unfortunately, it came out just before the advent of the new Federal Law stipulating that, henceforth, all commercial airliners had to have at least two pilots and two engines. As a result, the V-1 soon vanished from the U.S. commercial airways. However, it quickly became a favorite business and VIP transport, a sort of 1930s equivalent of the Lear Jet. In addition, at least one example ended up in Republican Spain during the Civil War, where it was converted into a bomber.

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The sole surviving Vultee V-1, a V-1A model, is preserved in the Virginia Aviation Museum at Richard E. Byrd Airport, Richmond, Virginia. This particular one was originally planned for a 1930s transoceanic flight, and had its wings stuffed with ping-pong balls for floatation in case it had to come down at sea. I have read that when the wings were opened up for restoration a couple of decades ago, a few 50-year-old ping-pong balls fell out.

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