Bowlus
1-S-2100 Senior Albatross
Photo: Robert Deering 10/23/2006
Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
Dulles International Airport (IAD)
Chantilly, Virginia
Bowlus Senior Albatross

Hawley Bowlus developed the Senior Albatross series from a design he called the Bowlus Super Sailplane. In Germany, designers and pilots led the world in the building and flying of high-performance gliders, and Bowlus was strongly influenced by their work. He and German glider pioneer, Martin Schempp, taught courses in aircraft design and construction at the Curtiss-Wright Technical Institute in Glendale, California. The two instructors led a group of students that built the Super Sailplane in 1932. The Super' served as a prototype for the Senior Albatross.

In May 1934, Warren E. Eaton acquired the Senior Albatross now preserved at NASM from Hawley Bowlus. Eaton joined the U. S. Army Air Service and flew SPAD XIII fighters (see NASM collection) in the 103rd Aero Squadron, 3rd Pursuit Group, at Issoudon, France, from August 27, 1918, to the Armistice. He was credited with downing one enemy aircraft in aerial combat. After the war, Eaton founded the Soaring Society of America and became that organization's first president.

Dimensions:
Wingspan: 18.8 m (61 ft 9 in)
Length: 7.2 m (23 ft 7 in)
Height: 1.6 m (5 ft 4 in)
Weight: Empty, 153 kg (340 lb)
Gross, 236 kg (520 lb)

Materials:
Originally skinned with mahogany and covered with lightweight cotton "glider cloth," then covered with a shellac-based varnish. In 2000, restorers removed original fabric and shellac coating, recovered with Grade A cotton fabric followed by several coats of nitrate dope, then lemon shellac, finishing with several coats of Johnson Wax.

Physical Description:
Monoplane glider with strut-braced, gull-type wing mounted high on monocoque fuselage; wooden construction with steel and aluminum fittings and controls; fuselage and wing leading edge covered with mahogany plywood. Fuselage skin applied over laminated Spruce bulkheads. Landing gear consists of single-wheel and .... [size?] tire mounted beneath forward fuselage, spring-steel tail skid beneath rudder. Cockpit covered with hood made from laminated Spruce bulkheads and covered with Mahogany plywood. Circular openings cut into hood on either side of pilot's head. Instrumentation: altimeter, airspeed, variometer plus a bank-and-turn indicator powered by low-speed venturi tube installed on retractable mount beneath right wingroot. Areas aft of wing spar and all control surfaces covered with glider cloth. Cloth is doped directly onto ribs and plywood skin without stitching for smooth finish. Constant-chord wing from fuselage to mid-span, tapered profile from mid-span to wingtip; constant-chord, split-trailing edge flaps and high-aspect ratio ailerons. A Gö 549 airfoil is used at the wing root, becoming symmetrical at the tip. All-flying elevator mounted on duraluminum torque-tube, rudder hinged to box-beam post, both surfaces built up from Spruce and covered with glider cloth.

Source: Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum

Bowlus Aircraft

William Hawley Bowlus (May 8, 1896 - August 27, 1967) was a designer, engineer and builder of aircraft (especially gliders) and recreational vehicles in the 1930s and '40s. Today he is most widely known for his key role in the design of Airstream travel trailers, which followed his prior famed work as the Superintendent of Construction on Charles Lindbergh's aircraft, the Spirit of St. Louis. He also designed and constructed the innovative but unsuccessful XCG-16A experimental military glider ordered by the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1943. In popular culture he is usually referred to as Hawley Bowlus.

Bowlus was an expert at soaring flight and at building gliders, established numerous records, trained many of America's earliest glider pilots, and gave gliding lessons to both Charles and Anne Lindbergh. In 1930 he and Lindbergh glided at various locations in California. Most notably Point Loma in San Diego California where Bowlus conducted many of his flights and tests.

Charles Lindbergh established a regional distance record for gliders by flying in a Bowlus sailplane from Mount Soledad in La Jolla to Del Mar, making use of the lift at the Torrey Pines Gliderport. Anne Morrow Lindbergh also flew in a Bowlus sailplane from Mount Soledad and became the first woman in the United States to receive a "first class" glider license (Maxine Dunlap had preceded her in becoming the first woman in the United States to receive a glider license of any kind, a "third class" glider license). Bowlus was also the first American to break Orville Wright's 1911 soaring duration record in an American designed and built sailplane.

Bowlus was inducted into the Soaring Hall of Fame in 1954.

Source: Wikipedia