Will lost ‘Cicada’ fly anew? Project aims to create replica of plane that crashed in 1932

The life cycle of the muscular little plane they called the L1 Cicada was tragically short. Nearly a century later, hope lingers that another of these flying marvels could hatch.

If luck breaks their way.

The original Cicada lived and died in 1932. Frank Lynch, a World War I flight instructor and stunt pilot, had commissioned it to be built for $10,000 by Springfield aviation engineer Robert L. Hall so Lynch and his wife, Josephine, could fly it around the globe, just five years after Charles Lindbergh’s pioneering trans-Atlantic solo flight.

That journey was postponed after Josephine got pregnant. But Lynch was in Agawam on Dec. 4, 1932, for further test flights. After two successful takeoffs and landings that day, Lynch lost control of the plane when lifting off the grass field at the Bowles-Agawam Airport and crashed into a hangar.

Dozens at the airfield witnessed the awful scene. When it hit the brick hangar, the Cicada was going nearly 100 mph. The impact ripped the nine-cylinder, 400-horsepower Pratt & Whitney engine from its mounts. The propeller snapped. A shredded electrical line ignited the plane’s fuel. The resulting explosion sent bricks flying 150 feet, according to news accounts in The Republican.

Lynch, who could not be rescued due to the flames, was buried with military honors in his home town of Waterbury, Connecticut. The crash was attributed to pilot error, not mechanical defect.

Today, designer Robert Hall’s son, Eric, is part of an effort to create a faithful replica of the Cicada, complete with its striking paint treatment conveying the look of the Mexican insect. They want to celebrate a golden age of civil aviation in the Springfield area, when people like Hall created flying racers that pushed the envelope on aeronautical design and competed in races around the country.

“It kind of got forgotten,” Matt Lawlor, an aviation historian who is one of the people working on the replica project, said of the L1 Cicada and planes like it.

Perhaps too much so. Lawlor says that while he and others have amassed lots of information on the Cicada, after looking in “every conceivable place,” the team needs more specifics on the plane’s design before it can commission a new builder, Jim Jenkins of Washington State, to get to work.

Lawlor is appealing to families in Western Massachusetts and beyond to share information they might have about the unique aircraft.

“We need more details on the plane. Every little piece of information helps along the way,” Lawlor said. “I believe the answers we are seeking are out there in someone’s attic or closet.”

Finding a working example of the Pratt & Whitney engine in the Cicada, the “Wasp Junior,” isn’t a problem; the engines can be bought for around $50,000 today, according to Lawlor. The cost overall of the replica project is likely to be several hundred thousand dollars.

The discovery of technical drawings or blueprints for the full plane would ensure success. “That would be the pinnacle of what we’re looking for,” Lawlor said. “Even something as small as a 3-by-5-inch photo can tell us something, though that doesn’t give you the inner workings of how the plane functioned.”

Anyone with information is invited to contact Lawlor by email at SpringfieldAircraftCo@gmail.com.

Racing world

Eric Hall, the designer’s son, says people often brought up this and other planes in conversations with his father. The elder Hall had studied mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan, graduating in 1927, the year of Lindbergh’s solo flight. Aviation beckoned.

“He was hooked,” Eric Hall said of his father. “He wasted no time after graduating taking a job at the then-new aircraft company Fairchild. He was also attracted by the speed of aircraft and the changes it would bring to the world.”

Hall went to work in 1929 with the Granville Brothers Aircraft Co. in Springfield and was lead designer for the company’s Gee Bee Z, nicknamed “City of Springfield.” The plane won the 1931 National Air Races held in Cleveland. The Great Depression was about to deflate interest in luxury products like airplanes. Hall broke away from Granville Brothers in 1931 and joined a flying school based at Springfield’s airport, before shifting to the Agawam airport (now the site of an industrial park) and founding the Springfield Aircraft Co.

Hall was commissioned by Lynch to build the two-seated Cicada in March 1932 and the craft was ready just three months later, with its maiden flight on June 25, 1932, complete with a green, brown and ivory paint design, including large eyes on both sides of the engine, by George Agnoli of Springfield.

Hall and Lynch flew it to Niagara, New York, on June 26. The plane placed fourth in an air race. The Cicada had also been flown in 1932 to Michigan, Ohio and Washington, D.C., before the December crash.

“Although there were a lot of planes of his design he could be proud of, the only pictures of planes in his den were of the Gee Bee Z, The Bulldog and the Cicada (other planes he designed). He was asked all his life about these planes. I am sure he was proud to be asked,” Hall said in an email interview.

Hall says he and his dad never spoke in depth about the Cicada, except about the fatal crash.

The plane had been flown twice before that December day. When Lynch maneuvered it back to the grass field at around 2 p.m., pointing into the wind for takeoff, he appears to have pulled up the controls before reaching the proper speed, according to research by Lawlor. With the plane only a few feet off the ground, it suddenly shifted direction toward the hangar. Lynch didn’t react in time and when he attempted to pull up to avoid the collision, it was too late.

Robert Hall was at the Agawam airport that day and ran with others to the hangar, grabbed fire extinguishers and climbed to the roof. No one could get within 10 or 15 feet of the wreckage, the newspaper reported.

A state and federal investigation of the crash found that the plane had been mechanically sound. Lynch, 43, had failed a flight surgeon’s physical that summer due to high blood pressure and had gone to a friend to be cleared for a license, Lawlor said.

While Lynch was adept at World War I planes, and had been a stunt pilot for Hollywood movies, he had been away from aviation as he built a successful business. In the meantime, planes had changed dramatically – particularly in engine power, Lawlor notes.

“There was a big jump in technology there and he was trying to catch up,” he said of Lynch.

Lawlor has been in touch with Lynch family members, including a stepson of Frank’s who is now 100 years old. None of those family members have been able to come up with records or designs of the Cicada’s short life.

The little plane lived on in Robert Hall’s memory, his son says, even after he closed the Springfield Aircraft Co. in 1933 and moved on, in 1936, to a long career with Grumman, a major aircraft manufacturer. At Grumman, he helped to design and test aircraft used in World War II, among them the Grumman Wildcat, Hellcat, Avenger, Goose, Bearcat and Tigercat. Hall’s time with Grumman included a shift to the age of jet aircraft. He retired as a vice president in 1970; Hall died in 1991 at age 85.

“I am convinced he liked the plane a lot. It must have been a beautifully flying airplane,” Eric Hall said of the Cicada.

To Hall’s knowledge, there is no current replica. He is designing a remote-control flying model of the Cicada, aided by drawings by Lawlor. “As I do, I am designing it with as much exact detail structure in it as the real plane had,” he said. “This will include modeling internal steel tubular structure and wing rib details, for instance. It could be the basis of a full-scale replica.”

For Hall, having a true working replica Cicada would build public understanding of a time when small firms, like the Springfield Aircraft Co. started by his dad, chased dreams of racing glory with what he terms “a very high standard of aeronautical design and aircraft workmanship.”

“I think the people of Springfield would be proud that the Cicada was designed and built there, another example of the time that Springfield was the center of the air racing world,” Hall said.

Jenkins, the likely builder of the replica, is from Connecticut and constructed a version of another plane designed by Hall, the Gee Bee. He could not be reached for comment.

A personal journey

Lawlor, who is 40 and grew up in Agawam, is the sparkplug of the venture. He says he fell in love with airplanes as a child and recalls that damage from the 1932 crash could still be seen at the airport hangar until the structure was demolished in the early 1980s. He thinks of the racers from Hall’s era as muscle cars of the sky – a lot of horsepower in small packages. He’s been studying the history of Springfield-area plane manufacturers for two decades.

“It started this personal journey for myself,” said Lawlor, who now lives in North Carolina.

Today, Eric Hall is his co-pilot of sorts.

“He’s been a huge help in this whole process,” Lawlor said of Hall. “He wants to see this built as much as we do.”

Under Federal Aviation Administration rules, the replica would be categorized as an experimental aircraft. Lawlor is confident the team could build a plane that is safe and reliable – just as the original Cicada was for half a year, until Lynch’s mistakes on takeoff that December day.

“The goal is to get it to Massachusetts, so it can be seen and appreciated,” Lawlor said of the replica.

After that?

“Retire it to a museum where it can live on forever,” he said. “It’s such a forgotten piece of aviation history.”

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