Air & Space Magazine

Make Me a Supermodel

Bravo’s got nothing on THIS runway supermodel: Chicago’s Wright auction house, which specializes in contemporary design, will feature in its December 8 Important Design auction a cast aluminum wind tunnel model of a Douglas BTD Destroyer—along with a Mercedes 230SL convertible and a Czechoslovakian…

Pat Trenner

November 24, 2009

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Bravo’s got nothing on THIS runway supermodel: Chicago’s Wright auction house, which specializes in contemporary design, will feature in its December 8 Important Design auction a cast aluminum wind tunnel model of a Douglas BTD Destroyer—along with a Mercedes 230SL convertible and a Czechoslovakian Tatra T87 automobile. Wright officials value the Douglas model at $35,000.

Douglas built a mere 28 BTD-1 single-seat torpedo bombers for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps in the mid-1940s. Douglas’s legendary designer Ed Heinemann reworked the BTD-1 into what became the AD Skyraider. See a full-scale BTD-1 at the Wings of Eagles Discovery Center at New York State’s Elmira-Corning Regional Airport.

Check out NASA’s poster of dozens of wind tunnel models, including two Douglas BTDs.