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 Dayton-Wright RB-1, built in 1920, was remarkably advanced for its time, featuring an enclosed cockpit, a cantilever monoplane wing, and a design prioritizing drag reduction when most aircraft were primitive biplanes.
It pioneered key innovations in aeronautical engineering, including what is thought to be the first variable-camber wing with adjustable leading and trailing edges, and a novel, patented retractable landing gear system.
These futuristic features, linked to operate in unison, aimed to achieve high speeds (estimated near 200 mph) for the Gordon Bennett trophy race, balancing the need for lift during takeoff/landing with drag reduction during cruise.
Despite its groundbreaking design, the RB-1 withdrew from its only race due to mechanical issues and never flew again, but its pioneering technologies significantly influenced the trajectory of future aircraft design.

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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.