Warbird Information Exchange

There was a topic recently about Tsuanmi.

I am at NWOC in San Diego and got to talk to John Hinton about Tsunami and heard Steve give a talk on his race days. They both said the thought Tsunami had good potential, but needed a lot of work to really be competitive.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

Let me preface this response by saying that Tsunami was one of my favorite race aircraft of all time. But this is my educated opinion on the plane.

In theory it was fantastic. Smallest possible airframe around a big engine. But it evolved over a L-O-N-G period of time. Seven years from the time it was sketched-out on a napkin until it took flight. During that time, speeds jumped significantly on the race course. The planned-for Allison turned into a single-stage Merlin, and ultimately a dual-stage Merlin.

You certainly can't argue with the brain-trust that designed her...Boland, Poe, Law, and the usual Skunk-Works suspects.

Construction and metal-work were grade-A.

Over the years, lots of tweaking was required due to CG issues. The wing was moved ultimately. The landing gear was a constant source of heartache, with at least two, maybe three failures. But ultimately, it turned into a fast little racer that was always in the hunt, won a few heats, and even took the Championship at Dallas in 1990.

NO DISRESPECT AT ALL INTENDED HERE, but the biggest hindrance to Tsunami was the owner. J.R. had a knack for tinkering, and sometimes tinkering without setting a baseline to come back to if the testing and tweaking didn't work out. But, his toy, his perogative. With my history in racing boats, the one thing I have found is that you can't try too many new things all at once without testing each one individually.

With the intent to rebuild Tsunami, it would need a lot of updating. Put some carbon-fiber materials in the reconstruction. Lots of attention paid to the shape of the radiator scoop and outlet--my thoughts being that there is enough room to put a NACA-style ducting similar to Miss Ashley II had in 1999. But the big thing (and most commonly agreed upon) is that with a proper Allison-Rod type Merlin, it would be a front-runner.

I don't think that is what the objective here is, however. I think Sharon Sandberg just wants to get the aircraft rebuilt and flying again and show it around in honor of her dad for a while before it goes into a museum.

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Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives, and I decline......

It's been confirmed by members of the Sandberg family that Tsunami will NOT be racing again, but only flown to airshows as a tribute to the genius of J.R. and the designers. Ultimately it will be put in a musuem. The family said that: 1) they don't have the money to make it into a "full-on" racing program, and 2) they don't want to modify it from it's original design - something that would probably have to happen to make it a legitimate top contender.

Lots of unrealized potential.

The main gear was from a Piper Aerostar. After one failure a buddy of mine machined a set of gear scissor links from steel to replace the failed aluminum ones. I guess in retrospect there was a good reason to call his engines "Sand-Grenades." They just weren't as well developed as the other top contenders' engines at the time. With a good engine Tsunami would've smoked the field at Reno. And to echo what "speedy" said, Sandberg tried lots of odd things like T-28 blades in the prop, the single stage engine and electronic ignition that sounded like good ideas but just didn't work out as well as hoped.

J.R.S. was really an all around nice guy and very generous. I still treasure my Tsunami crew jacket.

I don't think it was going to "smoke the field" against Strega or Rear Bear, but John did say that it had the advantage of being small. I didn't know an Allison was ever considered, didn't know if there was ever a competitive unlimited with one unless it was years ago.

Bud Wheeler ? was talking about 2 late Allisons with two stage superchargers that are supposed to run up to 2000 hp at 100 inches boost. He is rebuilding them for an F82 project that is in Minn. And I don't have more details.

I knew Steve Pisonos , ex P-51 and Spitifre pilot, who did some post war testing on late Allison engines that were supposed to run well at high power like 80inches. The engineers said it would work so Steve went up to test it in a P-63. First time the engine blew he made an engine out landing ok. The engineers told him they got the bugs worked out, so Steve went up again. This time when the engine blew it caught on fire and Steve bailed out. He told the boffins to fly it themselves next time they got it all worked out.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK