Chris Ferguson's Reno Presentation
I went to the Chapter 732 meeting Sunday but my airplane battery was dead so had to drive and arrived late. Chris designed and built the fastest qualifying biplane this year and the airworthiness was certified about a month and a half before the big 2005 Reno National Air Races. I am going to ask Cris for a copy of his presentation because what I saw was a real inside look at the technical design, physical implementation and the racing skill involved. He has gone through two fairing configurations for the center support for the upper wing and he is still not satisfied with it. The part I saw that would be of direct interest to RVrs was the engine work. He built up the engine with selected parts from helicopter versions and other best for the purpose of racing in the biplane class. He said he installed 11:1 pistons from Lycon and he had a slide showing one beside a standard Lycoming piston for the engine. He said that Lycon has 13:1 pistons that they will sell you. His expected mean time between overhaul is 200 hours. He also reported the Formula One racers are turning over 4,000 rpm and have a MTBO of 25 hours. Another interesting thing I got to see was the air intake which he said was an NACA design, not the classic half hour glass profile but a small chin scoop picking up the high pressure air just below the 15" spinner similar to that seen on a P-51D. He said they were able to pick up 2 inches of manifold pressure with this configuration. I wish I could have been there 40 minutes earlier when the meeting started but it was not to be. If anyone else was there and picked up any nuggets for Cris's presentation please share them.
Bob Axsom
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