Laird Super Solution
The Laird Super Solution was a single-seat racing biplane built by the E. M. Laird Airplane Company for the Cleveland Speed Foundation in the summer of 1931. Developed from Matty Laird's Thompson Trophy-winning Solution and powered by highly modified Pratt & Whitney Wasp Junior radials of over 500 hp, it was built in about six weeks as Jimmy Doolittle's mount for the first Bendix Trophy race. Doolittle won the Bendix, flew on to Newark to set a transcontinental record, then led the Thompson Trophy before a failing engine forced him out. Rebuilt with retractable gear for 1932, it was damaged in a belly landing and passed into storage; its remains went to the Smithsonian in 1948. No original flies today: a static replica stands at the EAA Museum in Oshkosh and a flying reproduction at Fantasy of Flight in Florida.