Viewing page 17 of 29

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

was included in the group that went to France that fall for the race event. Because of a control-cable failure the RB-1 had a forced landing and was out of the race. Conover remained with Dayton-Wright on experimental and developmental work through 1923.

In 1924 he joined the Johnson Aeroplane and Supply Company, Dayton, with Ivan H. Driggs where he assisted in building the Driggs-Johnson lightplane, called the "Bumble Bee," which was entered in the lightplane race events of the National Air Races that fall in Dayton. This outstanding full-cantilever, high-wing, enclosed-cabin monoplane was powered by a 4-cylinder Henderson motorcycle engine. Flown by James Johnson, it easily carried away all honors in the lightplane events. Conover's mechanical skill was an important contribution to its success. While there, Driggs and Conover also designed and built an OX-powered three-place biplane for passenger flying called the "Canary."

In 1925 Driggs formed the Driggs Aircraft Corporation at Dayton and Conover became his Shop Superintendent. In rented shop space they started a redesign of the Johnson "Bumble Bee" which they called the "Driggs Dart." Of the same general configuration, it embodied many improvements and was powered by a Wright-Morehouse 2-cylinder opposed aircraft engine.*

In May, 1926, Driggs sold a "Dart" plane to the Air Service with a special wing equipped with leading edge slots and flaps for research test work at McCook field. Following this a special commercial monoplane was designed and built for Captain Eddie Rickenbacker of Detroit. Known as the "Rickenbacker Coupe" it was a two-place, side-by-side cabin plane with a folding high-wing. Its engine was the new Rickenbacker 5-cylinder, 65-[[strikethrough]] horsepower [[/strikethrough]]h.p. Air Cat radial. After brief tests at Dayton in September, the plane was flown to Detroit by Driggs pilot Jack Laass. A second Driggs "Dart" monoplane was flown by Laass in the Air Tours and National Air Races that year. Late that year Driggs decided to make a light 2-seat tandem dual-control training biplane. Called the "Dart II" it was powered by a 3-cylinder, 35-[[strikethrough]]horsepower [[/strikethrough]]h.p. Anzani engine.

*Designed by the author of the biographies, Harold E. Morehouse