Seven Records to Obscurity

This Week’s Hints to help you along:

  • A truly record-setting airplane with seven records in its class.
  • Unique in design, unique in construction, and unique overall.
  • Often missed though it is displayed prominently even today.
  • A modern design created and flown over 50 years ago!

So do you know what this aircraft is?

 

 

 

Post a REPLY below with your best guess!

Click here to check out last week’s What’s That?

 

14 thoughts on “Seven Records to Obscurity

  1. Hal Bryan says:

    Lesher Nomad – we have the later Lesher Teal in our museum here in Oshkosh.

    Reply
  2. Jon Pace says:

    Not sure but this sure looks like Molt Taylor’s work.

    Reply
  3. Art Pauly says:

    I believe it’s a Teal Imp. Designed by the same man who designed the Lasher Teal Amphibian.

    Reply
  4. Rob Golder says:

    Hi! It’s a Lesher Nomad SN-1, registration N1066Z. The aircraft first flew in 1961.

    Reply
  5. Harvey Cleveland says:

    Mini Imp, but I’m not sure. It is just the first and only name that came to mind.

    Reply
  6. Tom Puckey says:

    Construction of Ed Lesher’s “Nomad” started in 1959. The first flight was in 1961. It was powered by a 100 hp Continental 0-200 located aft of the cockpit. It has a 27 foot wingspan, cruised at 120 mph with a top speed of 135 and a range of 260 miles with an 18 gallon fuel tank. The plane was featured in “Homebuilt Aircraft Annual” in 1965. I just happened to still have a copy of the magazine!

    Reply
  7. Ted Lesher says:

    I’m Ed Lesher’s son, helped him buck rivets on this airplane when he was building it around 1960, and I offer corrections to this article based on family knowledge. Ed was a professor of aeronautical engineering at the University of Michigan, and this is his first homebuilt, the two-place Lesher Nomad. He followed it up with the Lesher Teal, a single-place aircraft purpose-built to break world records in the under-500-kg weight category. The Nomad never held any records, but the Teal captured seven for speed at various distances and also total distance in a straight line.

    Reply
    1. Eileen B. says:

      I am a freelance writer on assignment for an article on homebuilt record setters. I have all the EAA articles that your dad wrote about the Teal and the Nomad, but I would love to talk to you if possible. You can contact me at eabjorkman@aol.com. Thank you!

      Reply
  8. Megan Lesher says:

    This is the Nomad. When I was a little girl, my elementary school walked from school to the U.of Michigan’s East Engineering Building, where this airplane was constructed, in the basement aero-shop there. Although I frequently ventured into that space alone, as a class, we weren’t allowed into the shop proper, since it could be dangerous. (There were numerous students, working on various metal fabricating machines, including milling machines and lathes; a lot of sharp shavings on the floor there.) Although we couldn’t go in, my class watched my father working, building this plane. He was putting rivets into the body of it. When I was 12 or so, my father took me up in it. It was the first airplane he designed and built; not the record holder. That was the Teal. Both airplanes had their wings dismantled, to take them out of the shop, up the freight elevator, which at that time was on the Church Street side of the engineering building.

    Reply
  9. Donald Dieck says:

    Professor Lesher was my counselor 1962-1967. MSE U/Aerospace. His office was always deep in design drawings — walls, floor and desk. He counseled as he designed! If the courses aren’t working out, come see me and we’ll make changes. He left an indelible mark on me.

    Don Dieck

    Reply

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