Leg 04 California, H-1 Racer 13 September 1935 566 km/h

Condor

“The lord of the heights”

Still life - Condor, Roma collection

A limited run of 150 pieces Silkscreened temple, number on the certificate 51mm22mm145mm

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Same model, different variants.

Condor | Black

Carbon Special Lenses

Coloured ballistic lenses, finished after the wind tunnel trials. Available on Eagle, Sam and Condor, in a run of just 30 pieces against the 150 of the Roma series.

Light Azure / Red Cherry

Condor · Black

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Shipping, duties and taxes included for every destination we serve
Fourteen days to change your mind, return at our expense
A limited run of 150 pieces, numbered on the certificate
Finished by hand, 190 hours of work

Worn.

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Condor Carbon with blue lenses, worn — Condor Carbon | Light Azure

Condor Carbon | Light Azure, in profile

Condor Carbon with red lenses, worn — Condor Carbon | Red Cherry

Condor Black, worn outdoors — Condor Black, outdoors

Howard Hughes in the cockpit with helmet and goggles, archive photograph — Archive - Howard Hughes, 1935

He built the aircraft and flew them himself.

On 13 September 1935, in California, Howard Hughes took his H-1 Racer to 566 km/h and set the first outright speed record. The aircraft had been designed by his own company, Hughes Aircraft.

He was not a pilot who had machines built for him: he was a builder who wanted to try them himself. That record stood for four years.

The model takes its name from the Andean condor, one of the few animals able to stay aloft above five thousand metres: lines worked out against air resistance, not against appearances.

Flight logCollection Roma

Inspiration: Andean condor
Aviator: Howard Hughes, 1935
Lens: 51 mm
Bridge: 22 mm
Temple: 145 mm
Frame: Cellulose acetate
Lenses: Zeiss, polyamide
Impact: 21 CFR 801.410
Gender: Men
Colours: Black, Havana, Taupe
Making: Finished by hand - 190 hours
Testing: 21 measurement checks
Series: Limited and numbered - 150 pieces
SKU: 1003000

Two hundred and sixty-two operations, none of them automatic.

From cutting the sheet to the final check, a Condor goes through seven stages and two hundred and sixty-two separate operations. Polishing is the longest: the acetate turns in the drums and then returns to the hand, until the surface stops resisting the light.

A piece that fails the twenty-one measurement checks gets no number and never leaves the workshop.

A craftsman at the bench finishing a frame — The bench - finishing by hand

What arrives at your door.

The Flyper Roma box, open on the leather case

Case, cloth, card and numbered certificate

01Bespoke hard case
02Soft microfibre pouch
03Flyper card
04Cleaning cloth
05Warranty certificate
06Instruction and care booklet

Who has tried them.

4.7 out of 5 · 22 reviews

★★★★★

I have a big head and frames usually leave marks on my temples. I drove from Bergamo to Bari in these and that evening there wasn't a mark.

★★★★★

I wanted a colour nobody at the office already had. Taupe sits somewhere between grey and dove, and with a white shirt it works better than black, which was my first choice.

★★★★☆

Very sharp lenses and clean workmanship, not a single rough edge. The bridge is high, though, at 22 mm: on my small nose they slip a little and now and then I push them back up.

★★★★★

A present for my husband's fortieth; he knows everything about aircraft. He recognised Hughes's H-1 before he had even opened the booklet, and he hasn't taken them off since.