The Vance Viking, also called the Vance Flying Wing Express, and the Texas Sky Ranger, was a single seat cargo and racing aircraft.[1]
Claire K. Vance founded the Vance Aircraft Corporation to build the "Flying Wing" design.[2] The aircraft was designed though a series of hand-carved wooden models before drawings were made, with the intention of it being a high speed, high altitude air-freighter with storage in thick wing lockers. Its short air racing history was interrupted by the 1932 death of its designer Claire Vance[3] who struck a fog-covered mountain at Rocky Ridge.[4]
The "Flying Wing" was a conventional long-range aircraft for the period with the exception of the two large booms aft of the cockpit supporting the twin tail surfaces and twin rudders, rather than a conventional fuselage. The tandem seat aircraft was converted to a single pilot aircraft that featured a radial engine and conventional landing gear (one tailwheel for each boom). Fourteen fuel tanks totaling were interconnected inside the cantilevered mid-wing. The aircraft was of mixed construction, with an aluminum-covered welded steel tube fuselage. The wing used wooden wing spars with plywood covering. A forced air induction system was built into the wing roots with exhausts mounted near the trailing edges.[5]
In 1932 the Viking dropped out of the Bendix Trophy race following fuel system issues.[6] In 1933 it was entered, but did not compete in the Bendix Trophy race.[7]
In 1934 Lt. Murray B. Dilley purchased the aircraft and production rights from Claire Vance's estate for $10,000 with the intention of racing the aircraft in the 1934 England-Australia MacRobertson Air Race.[8] Dilley only paid $2500 of the amount owed, and abandoned the aircraft in the desert near Palm Springs, California. The Flying Wing was bought at auction in 1936 for $2500 by the Mason Aircraft Corporation. Clyde Pangborn planned on using the aircraft for a Dallas, Texas to Moscow Flight.[9] Later the aircraft was returned to tandem configuration, a radio compass was installed, it was re-painted red and white and christened "The Texas Sky Ranger". Roland W. Richards sponsored the aircraft as part of a publicity campaign for the Texas Centennial Exposition to fly to New York, Paris, visit London, Amsterdam, Madrid, and Brussels and then return on a non-stop Paris to Dallas flight with Pangborn and Mony Mason as pilots.[10] Mason backed out by not meeting a commitment, but the flight was planned to continue independently with Pangborn with newspaper sponsorship.[11]