In reply to Javelin :
That Burt Rutan. He does stuff like that.
Yes, it was an attempt by Robert Pond to create an alternate to modifying the increasingly rare WWII planes. The plane was designed by Burt Rutan and was rather unique in that it's center of mass was outside the physical body of the plane. It also had forward swept wings. They put turbocharged Nissan alcohol burning auto racing engines (v6's I believe) in it (basically merging auto racing tech with air racing), in very tight cowlings.... which eventually resulted in an engine fire. I am told a fatal flaw in the design was that there was no real fire wall between the engine nacelles and the wing / fuselage.
The concept was ultimately kind of unnecessary for it's declared purpose since because of the value of the old planes, it's reasonably practical and not uncommon for planes to be converted back from racers. Flying it through the wake of a Sea Fury would have been.... a difficult time.
It did make interesting sounds though:
In reply to aircooled :
It's like someone looked at a P-38 Lightning and asked if it was possible to shrink everything but the engines by 75%! It's a real life pod racer.
A friend of mine was the son-in-law of Ryan Falconer for a while. While visiting my buddy in Monterey, he took me to Mr. Falconer's shop for a tour. It was extremely cool, to say the least. They had just started producing the V12s the year before, and had gotten the first air racing engine back from Reno - the engine had blown due to lack of oil pressure. It turns out that the plane crew had bolted the motor up to a prop drive assembly that had different oil supply holes than had been specified to Ryan Falconer. Because of the bad publicity they weren't sure if the project would be successful, so it's good to see that there are still some of those engines being used.
Unrelated to this thread, they were also just finishing up polishing one fo the V12s for a street rod - it was extremely shiny!
Thanks for the write up and great pictures aircooled!
SV reX
MegaDork
9/25/23 9:13 a.m.
In reply to aircooled :
Fantastic write up! Thank you!!
aircooled said:
And here are the pilots. Both VERY young, and the lady at least, was rather small. Of note (not that it's relevant to the pics) is that F35 are essentially flying weapons command bunkers, and not really dog fighters. I believe an F16 could easily kick ones butt in a dog fight, if it could get anywhere near one!
My neighbor took his Extra 300L to Oshkosh one year. He mentioned glancing at a young man and mentally noting 'hey, that looks like the main character in [high school TV show his tween daughter liked]'. Later that day, he saw the same guy in his flight suit, discussing the F-35 he was flying later in the show...
In reply to mfennell :
Yeah, as I was kind of implying, they are likely more interested in pilots who can deal with the tech (and the thought processing that requires) and a slightly new way of looking at air warfare, rather than the traditional aggressive grizzled fighter pilot who wants to get into that aerial knife fight. Not implying either of them could not be aggressive or mean... but they just look so pleasant!
I should also note, being short is very much a thing for a fighter pilot. They tend to be able to pull more g's. Woman also tend to be able to pull more g's, but that might mostly be because then tend to be shorter.
To expand a bit on the picture above. The crew in the background, after the pilot walked away, and them putting a bunch of warning flag/covers on the nose, came up to the plane, plugged a laptop like device into, and appeared to turn on the airplanes APU (auxiliary power unit) to power up the plane and check something. Very much a giant piece of high tech.
Also of note, the latest versions of the F35, have so much electronics in them, the current engines cannot provide enough COOLING for the electronics! That implies a LOT of heat from the electronics. Yes, I suspect at altitude, cooling is not an issue (you loose temp as you go up). But when low, or sitting on the ground in a hot environment, it certainly could be.
Another recollection: a different friend met a recent Top Gun graduating class through some relation or another. He's a pilot himself (Beach Baron 56TC). He said they were nothing like the characters in the movie(s). Humble, very serious, and also very self-critical about their performance. I guess that's not a total surprise - arrogance in airplanes gets you killed - but still interesting to hear it from him.
In reply to mfennell :
I used to know a retired Top Gun Instructor who ran cars in NASAs Super Unlimited class. As you say, not a cowboy at all. Serious, wicked smart, and also very generous. I was running track days and he provided some excellent free coaching. He saw a good picture of my car running at Sonoma and on a whim had it blown up, framed, and given to me.
A minor update here. I go to a Cars and Coffee with someone who was the airport manager at Stead for a number of years (which is a pretty crazy coincidence, for me). His comment as to why the races where ended was effectively that even though the races did make a good amount of money each year, it also restricted the development on the airport (e.g building additional hangers/facilities that would be near the course), so, considering, was hurting the airport. E.g. one week is not as good as every other week of the year, money wise.
He was also not impressed with the handling of the accident. Leaving the entire crowd in the dark as to what was going on for (maybe an hour?) was not a good idea.
It will be interesting to see what comes in the future.
I don't remember if I mentioned it, but I talked to a bit to the wife of the owner of a company that essentially rebuilds all the P-40's (there are not a lot honestly). I mentioned to her one of my favorite movie shots of all time is the shot of John Belushi's P-40 landing on a road somewhere near "Death Valley CA" in the movie 1941 (which is somewhat historically accurate and I find to be a very funny movie). She of course noted that that was one of their planes and knew who the pilot was. I love the rather harsh landing on a very narrow road....
I should have asked here where it was shot because that is definitely not Death Valley (probably central CA somewhere). Here is another bonus P40 scene:
