The Folkerts SK-2, also known as Speed King Two, "Toots" and "Miss Detroit" was a racer built for the 1936

National Air Races The National Air Races (also known as Pulitzer Trophy Races) are a series of pylon and cross-country races that have taken place in the United States since 1920. The science of aviation, and the speed and reliability of aircraft and engines grew ...

Design and development

Clayton Folkerts designed his second racer, the SK-2 ''Toots'' after leaving the Mono-Aircraft Company, and Waco. It was commissioned by

TWA The Twa, often referred to as Batwa or Mutwa (singular), are indigenous hunter-gatherer peoples of the Great Lakes Region in Central Africa, recognized as some of the earliest inhabitants of the area. Historically and academically, the term � ...

pilot Harold Neumann in 1936. The aircraft was a mid-winged conventional geared aircraft with crank activated retractable landing gear and trailing edge flaps. The

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French language, French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds Aircrew, crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an Aircraft engine, engine as wel ...

was built of welded steel tube with

aircraft fabric covering Aircraft fabric covering is a term used for both the material used and the process of covering aircraft open structures. It is also used for reinforcing closed plywood structures. The de Havilland Mosquito is an example of this technique, as are ...

and the wings were made with

spruce A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' ( ), a genus of about 40 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal ecosystem, boreal (taiga) regions of the Northern hemisphere. ''Picea'' ...

spars and

plywood Plywood is a composite material manufactured from thin layers, or "plies", of wood veneer that have been stacked and glued together. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured boards, which include plywood, medium-density fibreboa ...

covering. The Menasco C-4S engine featured a one-foot propeller extension to allow a more streamlined cowling.

Operational history

In the 1936 National Air Races, Harold Neumann won three firsts, two seconds, and placed fourth in the

Thompson Trophy The Thompson Trophy race was one of the National Air Races of the heyday of early airplane racing in the 1930s. Established in 1929, the last race was held in 1961. The race was long with pylons marking the turns, and emphasized low altitude fly ...

race.

Steve Wittman Sylvester Joseph "Steve" Wittman (April 5, 1904 – April 27, 1995) was an American air-racer and aircraft engineer. An illness in Wittman's infancy claimed most of his vision in one eye, which convinced him from an early age that his dre ...

survived a flight in the SK-2 with a ruptured gas tank that leaked into the cockpit. In St. Louis, pilot Roger Don Rae landed gear up, badly damaging the aircraft. At the 1937 National Air Races, the aircraft was renamed "Miss Detroit" and pilot Roger Don Rae placed three seconds and one fourth place. In the 1938 Oakland Air Races, the rear fuselage was metalized. Pilot Gus Gotch was chosen as pilot; he entered a

spin Spin or spinning most often refers to: * Spin (physics) or particle spin, a fundamental property of elementary particles * Spin quantum number, a number which defines the value of a particle's spin * Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thr ...

on a pylon turn and was killed when the aircraft struck the bay. The cause was undetermined, but fellow racing pilots blamed the heavy locking mechanism for the landing gear as a contributing distraction in high-speed low level flight.

Variants

The

Folkerts SK-3 The Folkerts SK-3 a.k.a. ''"Jupiter, Pride of Lemont"'' was the third in a series of Air racing, air racers developed by Clayton Folkerts. Design and development The SK-3 was built for mechanic Rudy A. Kling from Lemont, Illinois as his personal ...

has a nearly identical design, except for a longer nose for a Menasco C-6S-4 engine.''Aeronautics,'' Volume 44, 1961.

Specifications (Folkerts SK-1)

References

;Notes ;Bibliography * Foxworth, Thomas G. ''The Speed Seekers.'' New York: New York: Doubleday, 1976. . * Matthews, Birch. ''Race with the Wind: How Air Racing Advanced Aviation.'' Minneapolis, Minnesota: Zenith Publishing, 2001. . * Matowitz, Thomas G. Jr. ''Cleveland's National Air Races'' (Images of Aviation). Mount Pleasant, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2006. . * Schmid, Sylvester H. and Truman C. Weaver. ''The Golden Age of Air Racing: 1927–1933.'' Oshkosh, Wisconsin: EAA Aviation Foundation, 1983. . * Vorderman, Don. ''The Great Air Races.'' New York: Doubleday, 1969.

External links