Dash119
Senior Airman
Not sure to whom you are referring, but I would think Pete Law had his hands in this somehow.
Who would you want to design your fighter - 1943
- Thread starter NevadaK
- Start date
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
Bill Hickle
Air Race News - Rare Bear 2007 Crew Announcement
Reno Air Races. Reno Nevada 2006 No Jet Racing.
aafo.com
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Howard Gibson
Staff Sergeant
All of the important engines of WWII were developed in the nineteen thirties. In 1939, the Lockheed Constellation was designed around R3350s. You can design an aeroplane in three months. It takes way longer to design a reliable engine. If you design a new air racing engine that puts out 3000-4000HP, you are amortising your engineering costs over something like ten engines maximum.
Read up on the Pond Racer, which was an attempt to design an unlimited racer with modern technology.
Rapid prototyping may be an opportunity to build new WWII engines from scratch. RR Griffons? Napier Sabres? P&W R2800s? What fun! You will have to solve once again, all sorts of reliability and production problems that were solved during WWII. All those guys flying Curtis C-46s will thank you. Otherwise, you have serious engineering costs to amortise over a short production run. Hopefully, some billionaire is determined to fly his Hawker Typhoon and Tempest.
Is it worthwhile developing a new internal combustion engine? Power is the product of displacement, Mean Effective Pressure (MEP), and RPMs. MEP ultimately is controlled by your fuel octane number, which is taken advantage of by your supercharger and your compression ratio. RPM is mostly a function of how long you want your bearings to last. Modern technology might make your engine more fuel efficient, but nobody cares about that in air racing.
How long is an unlimited air racer required to run? A cooling system completely inadequate for a WWII P-51 Mustang mission, may last long enough to win an air race.
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
Ok and you said the magic word, COST - it's a matter of what the competitor is going or willing to spend and "IF" they are going to look to develop a new engine to begin with
I know all about it - I worked at the airport where it was developed and knew people who worked on it and took it to Reno. Although a step towards a race plane (unlimited) built from the ground up, it was not successful as a racer unfortunately
Again it's about money but your golden question How long is an unlimited air racer required to run? - about 16 to 20 laps depending on qualifications and practice laps - say about 5 hours! It's all about 3 days of qualifying and racing
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
Hopefully they will spend the money but not trying to rehash an obsolete design (at least for air racing). It's all about acceleration, position and maintaining a course line. Something like a rebuilt Typhoon and Tempest will be great for nostalgia, but in the bigger picture will be bricks if not highly modified.
Howard Gibson
Staff Sergeant
I am looking here at the Wikipedia page on the Pond Racer. They were hoping for a pair of 1000HP engines. They got a pair of 600HP engines. A Merlin 32 had a single speed, single stage supercharger, and it put out 1600HP. An aircraft designed around it would have less frontal area than a Pond Racer. You could always buy a couple of Bugatti Veyrons, and take the engines out of them. The W16s are equivalent to an early RR Merlin. Are they as streamlined?
Think back upon Can-Am auto racing back in the sixties and seventies. The "formula libre" (run what you brung) made for exciting cars, but boring races. On any given weekend, you knew if it was Denis Hulme's or Bruce McLaren's turn to win. Then Porsche took over.
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FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
The biggest issue I've found at my years at Reno was some of these brilliant mods and designs (sport and formula) were not reliable enough to make it through 3 days of racing. Although stated you're looking at only a few hour of operation, you also have to make it through those 3 days without nothing breaking that will put you out of the race or worse. I know after a few hours of flying, the Pond Racer started having some maintenance issues (oil leaks IIRC) that affected other elements.
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
"Speed Costs Money - how fast do you want to go?"
Howard Gibson
Staff Sergeant
That is the problem with designing a new engine. With rapid prototyped casting patterns, it would also be a problem with new WWII engines, particularly anything with sleeve valves.
Howard Gibson
Staff Sergeant
How many bums in seats?
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
That's the mantra of any high-performance venue, be it air-racing, Drag racing, street racing and so on.
I had a 1968 Chevelle with a 502 cid bigblock that logged low 10 second quarter miles.
It was not cheap to build (or maintain) and was highly gratifying to drive - 10 seconds at a time...
- Thread starter
- #112
Interestingly enough, the event that put the most bums in seats throughout the week was STOL drag racing. Only the unlimited final had more people for the single event.
- Thread starter
- #114
I've seen a few Eagle demo flights. The best one by far was at the 1997 Nellis air show which was the USAF 50th anniversary show. The normal flight restrictions had been relaxed and the F-15 put on a show that was simply amazing.
Clayton Magnet
Staff Sergeant
- 914
- Feb 16, 2013
That's sort of embarrassing.
"Lets go watch cutting edge, billion dollar war machines do unimaginable things before our eyes!".... meh.
"Loud truck go fast!" WHOOOOOOOO!
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
Loud noise, flames and explosions attract crowds!
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
Lee Shockley was the master of jet dragsters.
Butch Osmond and Doug Rose were some of the pioneers of the sport, too.
But my absolute favorite, were the Hydrogen Peroxide rocket dragsters!
Clayton Magnet
Staff Sergeant
- 914
- Feb 16, 2013
I think the coolest thing I have seen at an airshow so far, was the last Namao airshow in Alberta around 1994 I think. I was a kid, so the effect was probably greater. A newly independent Ukrainian airforce An-225 showed up, with two MiG-29's in the belly. They unloaded the MiG's, which did a display, then they loaded the Antonov with emergency relief supplies, and flew back to a struggling Ukraine. The MiGs hung around and went into the shop for avionics upgrades.
The 225 is a GIGANTIC beast
The 225 is a GIGANTIC beast
Thumpalumpacus
Colonel
We had that a couple of years at Carswell. Goddamned annoyance.
special ed
1st Lieutenant
- 7,102
- May 13, 2018
An airshow story: My last job had a delivery driver originally from Guatemala and after the Chinese took over the furniture factory in Guatemala where his son and family worked, he sponsored them to the US. In an effort to adjust his son to life here, many of us from work took him to an annual airshow which happened to feature a jet truck. Since Julio showed great interest in the jet truck and because a ride in it during the show was raffled off, our group walked around stuffing the entry boxes with Julio's name. He won. After the ride, we thought he would never stop smiling.
