Warbird Information Exchange

[quote="Dave Hadfield"]Oddly enough, I was talking about something like this yesterday with a friend, during a flight. He had shown me a picture of the Harmon Rocket he's nearly finished building -- which is an awesome airplane. Later in the conversation I wondered about a R-985-powered airplane, somewhat along the lines of a Hughes Racer.

I wouldn't want a Hughes Racer of course. I'd want 2 seats and a bit more wing and landing gear. But the idea is that it would be cool to build a low-wing, lightweight, tandem-seat monoplane, using the 985 (since it's a common engine, with parts and rebuilds easily available). Stressed for aerobatics, able to operate off decent grass. Tailwheel, of course, but nice and long-bodied, for grace and to help with ground-handling. Three hours range. Decent-sized cockpits. Retractable gear. As much speed as you can get while still satisfying the above.

I think it would be an extremely cool project.

Dave[/quote]
Check out the radial rocket. Pretty much everything you are looking for, sans the m14 for the 985.

If you'd be prepared to compromise on the retractable gear and R-985, it sounds as though one of these would be just what you're looking for!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtiss-Wright_CW-19

Cool. I didn't know about the "Radial Rocket".



At first glance it looks a little short-coupled, and I'd prefer a taildragger with retractable-gear (so far only the tricycle-gear version is retractable), but yeah, very cool.

I'm surprised the Vne is only 280. In a power-on descent, I imagine it would be easy to reach that.

And the Russian engine is a good idea -- plentiful, tough, and lot of parts available.

As for the Curtiss, sure, wonderful, but the Rocket is actually do-able.

One of the RRs crashed last Sept. It'll be interesting to read the final findings.

Dave

The tricycle gear version resembles a T-28. Even though the taildragger is fixed-gear, like you said, its a "doable" project for the individual who wants a two seat radial powered taildragger...

And this thing is only 6 feet shorter and 10 ft less wingspan than a full size F8F Bearcat

It would really be neat to build a " what if " H1 Racer pursuit plane for the Air Corps or Marines. Then one could get away with a different engine, and even an aluminum wing. But, the exterior would need to resemble the actual H-1 as closely as possible, without lossing any of its dimensions.

You would get an F4u corsair w/o the bent wing and taller landing gear.

Euro company Flugwerk makes a full scale FW-190 powered by a P&W 1830. WOuld probably cost close to a $mil to get it flying. Too bad its not 1946, when warbirds were strewn about the countryside and people couldnt give them away. The best story i've heard is the 1949 Thompson tropy winning F2G Corsair sat on the ramp in Cleveland for 5 years while the airport begged for someone to take it away. It sat for 5 years until the airport just set it on fire...

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Hughes-H-1B-(replica)/0446896/L/&sid=4ac80225bdd1622f0161c3e38785bf93

Thought this would get the thread back on track.

The taildragger would have to have an entirely new wing designed around retracts. The spar is in the way. That's why they had to go with a nose dragger so they could shift the mains aft on the retract version.