We just got back from Reno today in the RV6A. What a great experience, both at the Air Races and the trip itself from Canada.
The turbo Subie ran flawlessly for 16.4 hours of air time- what a relief! This was the longest/ farthest trip from home for VZX by far since completed in 2003.
The races were awesome and as you know I'm a liquid cooled engine fan so I have some bad news for the air cooled cheering section- the Merlins are back. Mike Nixon has eradicated the evil bottom end problems that have plagued race Merlins for quite a few years now, allowing them to run above 140 inches reliably again. When this happens, the radial aircraft really don't have much of a chance. Strega and Dago Red walked away with all the big Unlimited wins.
On the Sport Class front, the single liquid cooled entry was bedeviled by more supercharger problems as previous years in the Thunder Mustang. Ditch the supercharger and get turbos on there guys. Jon Sharp's Nemesis surprised everyone with a 409 mph qualifying lap. It sounded simply awesome- yes it is a Lycoming- what am I saying???
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I helped Mike Dacey's crew with his Conti 550 TT powered Questair Venture as he was running our SDS engine management system this year. Things went very well and Mike trounced all the other high buck teams except Sharp's to finish second in qualifying at 375 mph as well as the Gold race with 368 mph vs. Sharp's 392. Many people were amazed by Mike's performance and the Venture got lots of looks.
Many entrants running Lycos and Contis with mechanical injection suffered from fuel metering problems. Sharp did not have this problem with the might of the Lycoming factory techs behind his effort. The EFI in Dacey's plane allowed him to concentrate on flying while the engine ripped out full hp smoothly.
Speaking of power, you now need over 75 inches MAP to be near the front and in excess of 750hp! Next year will require even more.
The geared Conti/ Lancair from DG's camp showed some great promise finally this year but prop and fuel metering issues did not allow all the speed it might have shown. Without doubt, this combo is capable of over 800 hp- at least for a while. It looked very cool with the new prop and cowling. More to come from this for next year although the Lancair airframe is really at a bit of an aerodynamic disadvantage compared to the NXTs and Ventures IMO. With the engine running at 3900 rpm, the hp potential is there.
The biggest thing besides Sharp's blistering speed was the announcement by Keven Eldredge with his NXT (formerly Lycoming powered) was installing a Trace (nee Orenda) turbo V8 for next year and their engine was wheeled over for photo ops in front of Relentless. The Lycoming boys were shocked and even looked a bit worried. The bar is high now with the 409mph lap but clearly a liquid cooled engine has huge advantages in racing from a thermal limits and power density point of view. Once developed and debugged, I don't doubt the present record will quickly fall.
Super interesting talking to the Lyco Boffins and sales guys and looking at their new offerings. Very nice stuff (what am I saying??). I really liked the looks of their turbo normalized 360. Nicely laid out and properly done IMO. I also liked their new FADEC system and engine parts to go with it for their sixes. Truly state of the art. Lycoming is finally getting their engines and systems up to date and I liked what I saw there.
When I get my photos downloaded, I'll send something along to Doug about the trip.
Reno 2008
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