pond racer anything left

[andyman64]

you mean to tell me in order to run at 1000hp it had to run on alcohol but it didn,t have enough fuel capacity to run an entire race? who designed the fuel system ? Don Garlits?

[bdk]

Did Don Garlits ever run out of fuel during a drag race?

[JohnH]

I still think of Rick a lot and miss him. As for that airplane??????

[The Inspector]

An engine burning alcohol makes somewhere between high test gasoline but well below Nitromethane for power per specific unit, the advantage is the engine runs so cool from the alcohol they are difficult to get up to a good working block temperature which impacts engine effiency, in fact if you watch NHRA sportsman drag racing, you'll see a blown cars crew chief with a spray can of PAM hosing down the injector butterflies on the pre-stage as the temperature drop is so abrupt and severe that the injector ices up and won't let the butterflies open properly. Alcohol also suffers from very poor fuel economy and rapid evaporation which is in part why if your local car gas seller deals with E-85 you get much lousier mileage per tankful. Standing behind a race car burning ALC will also bring tears to your eyes due to the fumes, not as bad as burning N3H2, but pretty powerful.

[Flying Pencil]

The best twin engine racer = Do-335.

Sure the engines where small, but having the cockpit in center = lotsa drag.

RIP Rick. She was a sexh bird.

[bdk]

An engine burning alcohol makes somewhere between high test gasoline but well below Nitromethane for power per specific unit, the advantage is the engine runs so cool from the alcohol they are difficult to get up to a good working block temperature which impacts engine effiency... Alcohol also suffers from very poor fuel economy and rapid evaporation which is in part why if your local car gas seller deals with E-85 you get much lousier mileage per tankful.

The cool running enhances charge density. Alcohol also has oxygen in it hence it needs to run richer than gasoline to achieve a stochiometric fuel to air ratio. That is also why you get "lousier" mileage. I don't think E-85 would run well in a carbureted engine unless you adjusted the jet size to compensate. Modern electronically fuel injected cars can adjust based on inputs from the oxygen sensor. Alcohol also has lower lubricity than gasoline and attracts moisture, so engine wear may be higher.

Of course using E-85 causes an increase in food prices because the grain is diverted from cattle feed, but that is a different thing altogether. They use a lot of alcohol fuel in South American countries I believe.

[GregP]

Some remains ARE at the Planes of Fame in Chino. We don't talk about it much, but we can see them in the back yard not open to the public. At least I have. No public pics are expected by mangement and won't be forthcoming.

The design was pretty fast for the power and one of the issues was the rubber intake manifolds that could collapse and run an engine lean until it grenaded and caught fire; not good in a fiberglass aircraft ... air doesn't put out fires at normal speeds.

The concept is a good one. It needs metal and some intakes other than rubber. It ain't a motorcycle and didn't need intake passages that could collapse under the pressure of racing.

If I were in a position to do so, I'd try the design in metal ... or some variant thereof. I'm not and won't.

Think of it scaled up with two unlimited Merlins ... of the Dwight Thorne variety ...

It certainly has potential, but needs engines that will not spontaneously run lean due to intake restriction in normal use. I'm not too sure converted auto engines are good for airplane racing though Lee Behel did VERY well with the converted Corvette engine until the airframe failed him.

You won't find many pilots at the Planes of Fame who fly fibergalss airplanes as a result of the fatalaties we have experienced. We had two that were killed when the canard came off a Rutan Easy (Vari or Long, not sure) after it apparently delaminated. So, we've had three pilots killed in fiberglass planes.