Dayton Wright's Race To Build a Time Machine

When the RB-1 was constructed to compete in the 1920 Gordon Bennett trophy race in France, it utilized features unheard of in that era.

Jason McDowell

Tuesday, April 04, 2023 at 10:46 AM ET

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Perhaps in an effort to demonstrate the strength of a then-unheard-of strutless cantilever wing, pilots and engineers involved with the development of the RB-1 stand on the wing for a photo op. [Credit: USAF archives]

Key Takeaways:

The 1920 Dayton Wright RB-1 was an exceptionally advanced aircraft, far ahead of its time with features like a fully-enclosed cockpit and a single cantilever wing, contrasting sharply with contemporary primitive biplanes.
It pioneered groundbreaking aerodynamic innovations, including the first variable-camber wing (with adjustable leading and trailing edges) and a patented retractable landing gear system, both designed to reduce drag and optimize flight performance.
Despite these revolutionary technologies, the RB-1 withdrew early from its intended Gordon Bennett trophy race due to mechanical issues and never flew again, though its advanced design profoundly influenced future aircraft development.

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In the film Back to the Future II, the antagonist Biff Tannen steals a sports almanac containing scores from every major sporting event over a 50-year time span and delivers it to his younger self via a time machine. Armed with this knowledge from the future, his younger self then utilizes the almanac to gamble, amassing a fortune estimated by fan websites to exceed $3.1 billion and forever altering the trajectory of that timeline.

While there’s no concrete evidence a similar chain of events occurred in the world of aeronautical engineering, the concepts utilized by the Dayton Wright RB-1 certainly suggest at least one time machine was involved in its development.