Warbird Information Exchange

Rod Lewis is not racing anything this year at Reno, including Rare Bear. Rumor is that he is finished with Air Racing. Can somebody confirm this?

I heard the same thing from a source at OSH. Rare Bear was to be put on display back in San Antonio and 232 is being considered for return to stock.

End of an era for Reno It appears from this thread that Strega and Voodoo will pretty much run away with Unlimited Gold this year.
Has anyone heard an update on Precious Metal? Last I heard she was being evaluated for rebuild.

I guess the t-shirt fund isn't enough...

Phil

Thom Richard has been quite open and forthcoming on discussing PM and air racing on facebook. In a recent post he wrote that PM will not race this year, or next and maybe not even 3 years from now. He said they were continuing, albeit slowly, to rebuild PM to race again. Reading between the lines, I got the distinct impression from this and other previous statements that the largest obstacle was funding. The fire created extensive damage to the fuselage and wing and it's going to take a whole lotta money to fix it. Thom has publicly stated that PM will race again, but I don't think it will be any time soon. Given how difficult it is to get sponsorship (read, money) for air racing programs, it wouldn't surprise me if it took 7 to 10 years before we see PM rounding the pylons again.

Just as an FYI, because Rare Bear's record run was in 1989, it's actually no longer the "Fastest Internal Combustion Aeroplane" according to the FAI. Sometime after that, they changed the Internal Combustion Aeroplane class to have sub-classes for weight (a - d). As such, the standing record was "retired" and currently the Yak-3U "SteadFast" flown by Will Whiteside, Jr., is actually the current record holder in the C-1d class at a mere 669.63 km/h (416.09 mph) set in October 2011 at Wendover, UT. The next closest record is for the C-1c category and is held by John Sharp in his Nemesis NXT at 669.08 km/h (415.78 mph), set in September 2015 in Moriarty, NM.

Interestingly, the current C-1d Turboprop 3km closed course record is significantly slower at 449.71 km/h (279.44 mph) set by a TBM-700 out of Las Cruces, NM. The absolute record for a 3km course is held by a Lancair Turbine IV-P at 570.33 km/h (354.39 mph).

Important of note here - all the closed course speed records currently active were flown from airports with a field elevation around 5000 feet MSL.

The "absolute" Closed Course record for Turboprops appears to be held by the Tu-142 (a modified version of the Tu-95) at 834.28 km/h (518.40 mph) over a 2000km course. Next to several Tu-142/Tu-95 records, the next fastest airplane over a closed course is the C-130J which achieved a speed of 637.58 km/h (396.17 mph) over a 1000 km course. After that, you drop below 500 km/h for a closed course. There are straight line and point-to-point records above that, but all of those I don't count because they allow weather to factor in (i.e. they're all Eastbound flights between cities and likely got significant Jet Stream help).

PS - I tried to write this post this afternoon but got busy and wasn't able to finish the research. Sadly the FAI doesn't have a great search engine to find the standing records.

Wow sure looks like a lot of weight on the nose of that Griffon. I still think its funny that they don't use a swept wing like at least an F86, or better when trying to break a speed record.
And rotate the prop nice and fast like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51BEbZlps80
And most important listen to 4:46 or so to 4:48 they mention the rpms. Its called thinking out of the box.

I suppose that even people like Bob Button are limited by their budgets. And even if money were no object you gotta ask yourself how much are you willing to spend for the simple pleasure of having your name in the record books?

Also, a swept wing has already been tried on an Unlimited racer. It was called "Vendetta" / "Miss Ashley II". It ended up with disastrous consequences and killed a well known race pilot.

But as I recall, the cause of the crash was likely a trim tab or flutter issue on the tail- not an inherit flaw or direct "consequence" of the moderately swept (tapered?) lear-jet wing. A true swept wing as most define it (ala' f-86 shape) has been mused about, but not applied to an unlimited.

All the best for the record attempt team! It is quite a testament to see how long the record stayed with the me 209, Conquest 1, and Rare Bear.

Oh and don't forget the Red Baron! Funny that Conquest, Baron and Bear's records are all 10 years apart. It is fitting though as each one was the dominant force in air racing when they set their records.