John Livingston -air racer (additional info on our Vintage Footage Facebook page) John H. Livingston (1897–1974) was an American aviator and air race pilot of the 1920s and 1930s. Livingston placed first in 80 national air races. In 1930, Livingston purchased a Monocoupe 110 (NC-501W) to use in air racing. Livingston modified the landing gear, engine cowling, engine output, streamlined struts. In 1932 the aircraft went back to the factory to have the wings clipped from 32 feet to 22 feet in length becoming a Monocoupe 110 Special. Livingston would fly the aircraft through rain storms with whitewash paint to find areas of drag. His modifications increased the speed of the monocoupe from 160 to 200 mph. Out of 65 races entered, Livingston placed first 41 times in this aircraft. Livingston sold his aircraft in 1933, and it was entered in the MacRobertson Race flying from England to India where it dropped out.[The rebuilt airplane returned to America, killing its next owner Ruth Barron in a 1936 Omaha, Nebraska crash. Livingston's first Monocoupe racer was restored over ten years between 1996 and 2006 and is still flying. The Ford Reliability Tour, properly called "The National Air Tour for the Edsel B. Ford Reliability Trophy", was a series of Aerial Tours sponsored in part by Ford from 1925 to 1931 and re-created in 2003. Top prize was the Edsel Ford Reliability Trophy. Henry and Edsel Ford were shareholders in the Stout Engineering Company. In August 1925, they purchased the entire company, making it the Stout Metal Airplane Division of the Ford Motor Company. Their product, the Stout 2-AT Pullman, was a featured plane. The plane was also used by their new airline the Ford Air Transport Service, which started regular flights in April. The Flights out of Ford Airport (Dearborn) cross-marketed, and showcased Ford's new interest in aviation. Autogyro / Autogiro An autogyro, also known as gyroplane, gyrocopter, or rotaplane, is a type of rotorcraft which uses an unpowered rotor in autorotation to develop lift, and an engine-powered propeller, similar to that of a fixed-wing aircraft, to provide thrust. While similar to a helicopter rotor in appearance, the autogyro's rotor must have air flowing through the rotor disc to generate rotation. Invented by the Spanish engineer Juan de la Cierva to create an aircraft that could fly safely at slow speeds, the autogyro was first flown on 9 January 1923, at Cuatro Vientos Airfield in Madrid. The Pitcairn PCA-2 was an autogyro developed in the United States in the early 1930s, Harold F. Pitcairn's first autogyro design to sell in quantity. It had a conventional design for its day – an airplane-like fuselage with two open cockpits in tandem, and an engine mounted tractor-fashion in the nose. The lift by the four-blade main rotor was augmented by stubby, low-set monoplane wings that also carried the control surfaces. The wingtips featured considerable dihedral to act as winglets for added stability. The PCA-2 was the first rotary-wing aircraft to achieve type certification in the United States[3] and was used in a number of high-profile activities including a landing on the White House lawn and the first flight across the United States in a rotorcraft. This latter feat was attempted by Amelia Earhart, flying for the Beech-Nut food company, but was actually accomplished by John M. Miller who completed his flight nine days before Earhart on 28 May 1931, in his PCA-2 named Missing Link.[6] Learning of Miller's achievement upon her arrival in California, Earhart set out to turn her flight into a round-trip record by flying east again, but abandoned the attempt after three crashes.[6] Earhart set an altitude record in a PCA-2 on 8 April 1931 with a height of 18,415 ft (5,615 m). This record was broken in another PCA-2 by Lewis Yancey who flew to 21,500 ft (6,600 m) on 25 September 1932. PCA-2 operated by the Detroit News, displayed at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI. In 1931, The Detro...