YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. -- A $1 million homebuilt

replica of a 1935 racing aircraft crashed on the banks of the
Firehole River in Yellowstone National Park as its builder-pilot was
returning home to Oregon from a Wisconsin air show.

    Park officials said James Wright, 53, of Cottage Grove, Ore.,

died when the plane crashed about 6:30 p.m. Monday in Midway Geyser
Basin about five miles north of Old Faithful.

    The plane was a replica of the Hughes H-1B, a 1935 racer flown

by oil and film industry tycoon Howard Hughes.

    The plane was en route from Oshkosh, Wis., to Oregon, Federal

Aviation Administration spokeswoman Karen Byrd said. Oshkosh is the
home of the Experimental Aircraft Association, for amateur plane
builders, and its annual Oshkosh show is the largest gathering of
home-built airplanes in the world.

    Yellowstone officials said the plane approached from the west

about treetop level just south of the geyser basin parking area.

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Very sad and disturbed to hear such news.....Especially after meeting

and

speaking to the man just recently.....While it is not certain what
happened..I did voice my opinion at OSH to James over the damage on the

right

wing leading edge which occurred while en route to OSH by ice granules.

                                                      Butch

-Randall Semrau wrote:

For anyone interested, here is a link to a great web page
detailing Jim Wright, and the H-1B.

http://www.wrightmachinetool.com/hughes/

Randall Semrau
Vancouver Canada
rsemrau@shaw.ca

I am not sure what portable navigation equipment he had in the cockpit but I highly
recommend a GPS that has vectors to the nearest airport. IMHO that is a HUGE HUGE
safety feature. All I saw in the cockpit was vintage instruments.
>From the sounds of it he may have had fuel problems.

Paul Lamar
 
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