All I know is that I was at KSQI (Rock Falls, IL) while the "pack" was turning over the airport. It was a very cool sight to see.

My favorite part -- the RV-10 whizzing by the canard flyer.
 
I was also at the SQI turn and watched em all come by. **** neat. The RV-10 was hauling @!@#. Lots of canards, and of course all the plastic planes were out front making noises that would raise the hair on the back of your neck. They were really smokin along. I sure do admire all of them.
Best,
 
It was a very good race

The weather getting into Dayton was a semi challenge (not bad really) but the weather on Sunday couldn't have been better. We returned home today.

Bob Axsom

P.S. That 244 mph RV-4 is pretty special and I suspect he is crushed to have been beaten by the tail dragger fixed gear Glassair.

RWA
 
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Congrats Bob

I know you put a lot of work into your plane and a lot of planning into the flight(s).

Only 363 day's until next year's race. Time to start with the mods.

Just remember, racing is very simple. You want to go fast? How much $$$ do you have?

One question, where would my O-290 powered -9 fall in the race classes? Does it all depend on the average speed I submit?

(I know, it would fall WAY behind!)
 
Race classes

N941WR said:
I know you put a lot of work into your plane and a lot of planning into the flight(s).

Only 363 day's until next year's race. Time to start with the mods.

Just remember, racing is very simple. You want to go fast? How much $$$ do you have?

One question, where would my O-290 powered -9 fall in the race classes? Does it all depend on the average speed I submit?

(I know, it would fall WAY behind!)
Click to expand...

I think you can pick from a couple... go to www.airventurecup.com and there is a description of the classes...
 
Here you go

osxuser said:
I want to see the RV-4 that averaged 240+MPH...
Click to expand...
Here ya go Dave Anders N230A: http://cafefoundation.org/v2/pdf/RV-4.pdf

His last top speed was around 265 mph.......


Congrats to our Bob & Jeanine Axsom's RV-6A #71, racing is fun win or show


When you think of it a fixed gear plane we build in our garage can BLOCK +190 to 200 mph is pretty amazing.

As far as Dave Anders 2nd place in the Formula FX class he lost by 48 seconds on about 2 hours. That is within pilot variation. The Glasair guy has flown this race before. I don't think Dave had flown this before.

I know what Dave Anders has done since he is very open and friendly about what he has done if you talk to him. The Glasair guy, Steve Hammer, I would like to know what he does to make his plane go fast.

One common denominator in all the top finishers is not only a super clean airframe but the engine. You can bet none of them are stock. There is no tech inspection or rules, so their engines are highly modified. NO2 would not surprise me. The real fast unlimited planes are all turbo-ed. Klaus Vari-EZ and his "100 HP" O-200 continental is making who knows, 160HP plus? Hey it's all fair in racing. Do what you can to get an advantage. Any hot rod guy knows you tell the guy, Yea I have a little 283 in it, when you had a 396 rat, want-a race.
 
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RV Race Classes

It is kind of arbitrary how an organization sets up their classes if they have any at all.

The Airventure Cup Race is all out racing with no handicaps but they have two classes that are set up specifically for RVs and nothing else and they are based on cubic inch displacement of the engine. The red class is 320 cu.in. max and the blue class is 360 max. With a 290 cu. in. engine you would be in the red class. I have to be very frank with you and say that you would have to work some kind of magic not to be dead last. There is one guy that comes out there every year and flys a Glastar in the race. He has absolutely no chance and the plane is so slow that he is allowed to take off before everyone else so he will clear the turn points during the race waiver and be at Fond Du Lac when all of the rest of the racers are there. I do not know the man but I suspect he has a higher moral standard than some of the rest of us and winning is not the "must do" motivator. He lines up at the end of the runway and accelerates when released, flies the 407 nautical miles, making two turns and hitting the finish line, just like everyone else. It seemed to me that he went a little faster this year. If you want to do it you would be in the RV red class.

This race is always on shakey ground, the funding keeps getting smaller and I suspect the participants are what keep it going. The 60 planes that flew this year are hard to ignore. Another race that would be better for you is put on by Some folks in an organization called U. S. Air Race Inc. It is handicapped so everyone theoretically has an even chance (certainly a chance) to win. Pat Purcell contacted me recently and said they are working on the race for next year already. They plan on starting at Wichita, Kansas but the route and finish line have not been set yet. An offer from Florida has been received. Their web site is http://www.us-airrace.org.

Bob Axsom
 
Kahuna,

Even at 200 mph, I could identify most of the RVs lined up in the ramp at SQI. I hope all went well at the formation clinic and congratulations to Speedy for achieving his FFI lead card. BTW, I placed third in the RV Blue class with a STOCK 0-360-A1A.

Robert Saltsman
 
other racing venue

All the fastest RVs are out here on the west coast. :D It would be nice to have a race out here once in a while. I doubt seriously if anyone is running NO2 for 407 miles.
Tom
RV3
 
Couldn't resist

tin man said:
All the fastest RVs are out here on the west coast. :D It would be nice to have a race out here once in a while. I doubt seriously if anyone is running NO2 for 407 miles.
Tom
RV3
Click to expand...

:D - They do have a race on the west coast, it's called "Reno" :)... Don't think there are many RV's entered in any of the sport class classes. A few Rockets, and HRII's, and maybe I remember an RV, but certainly not a *great showing* from where "all the fastest RV's are" ... Poking at ya in good fun mind you.
 
May be, it has been done

tin man said:
All the fastest RVs are out here on the west coast. :D It would be nice to have a race out here once in a while. I doubt seriously if anyone is running NO2 for 407 miles. Tom RV3
Click to expand...
You would be surprised. I know NO2 sounds ridiculous for 2 hours but............. :rolleyes:

I looked into it. Now mind you I am not talking about 80HP flow. I am talking about 10-15 HP flow and a big bottle. It is just an idea I have. You could just run dry. (Dry is just NO2 and not extra fuel.) You could just enrichen with the mixture. Of course this is good only at altitude unless you re-jet way richer.

Any NO2 experts out there. You could do it with just a mechanical valve in the cockpit and route to the air box and carb throat or if getting fancy a spay plate. Don't scoff, every little bit helps. I am only talking about an extra 4-5 mph. I know some use it at sun-n-fun and reno.
 
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Bruce Bohannon Flew in the 2006 AVC

Bruce Bohannon flew the Flyin' Tiger (no EXXON) in the Unlimited Class this year but I am rather sure he flew his 232 mph average speed with plain air and avgas. We do not know each other but we were both waiting at the Commander-Aero FBO counter on Sunday morning to settle up our bills. The attendant returned and I said "He is first" and Bruce immediately responded "That's the last time I'll hear that today".

At Fond Du Lac I saw two Lancairs (360 or 320 or maybe even 235) with a tube extending forward in the center of one cooling air inlet. I wondered about them but I never really pursued it. It was obviously an input for a sensor or or controller of some kind. It got me to thinking about a dynamic cooling air throttle, etc. A real attention getter.

I met John Huft who identifies himself as "Nusiance" on this website sometimes. A real gentleman and a with a very fast RV-8. Second in the RV Blue class by a tenth of a mile per hour behind Jon Rose. That had to hurt.

I took a photo on Saturday at Dayton in front of Commander-Aero our wonderful host (probably wouldn't have been a race if owner John Bosch had not done what he did) but the I don't seem to be able to get a decent image without advertizing anymore. Even more planes arrived before the race on Sunday.

After we recovered at Fond Du Lac the planes were all staged at tail out angles with the fastest planes in front on the left and right sides of the taxiway leading to runway 36. This was to facilitate a quick start-up and launch for the group arrival on 36L and 36R respectively at Oshkosh. We were going to be sitting for 45 minutes or so and I thought it was a great photo op. I climbed out and walked to the end of the taxiway and I was amazed at the distance and the mass of airplanes. I simply could not see from one end of the line to the other. This was a little over 60 planes with the chase planes included. The thought of what it must have been like in the early 1940s in England when the requirements for launching and forming up hundreds of B-17s were satisfied.

Bob Axsom
 
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Bob Axsom said:
At Fond Du Lac I saw two Lancairs (360 or 320 or maybe even 235) with a tube extending forward in the center of one cooling air inlet. I wondered about them but I never really pursued it. It was obviously an input for a sensor or or controller of some kind. It got me to thinking about a dynamic cooling air throttle, etc. A real attention getter.
Click to expand...
Probably part of the injector system on a turbo. Can't give you a better technical answer than that, but I'm sure somebody can.
 
gmcjetpilot said:
You would be surprised. I know NO2 sounds ridiculous for 2 hours but............. :rolleyes:

I looked into it. Now mind you I am not talking about 80HP flow. I am talking about 10-15 HP flow and a big bottle. It is just an idea I have. You could just run dry. (Dry is just NO2 and not extra fuel.) You could just enrichen with the mixture. Of course this is good only at altitude unless you re-jet way richer.

Any NO2 experts out there. You could do it with just a mechanical valve in the **** pit and route to the air box and carb throat or if getting fancy a spay plate. Don't scoff, every little bit helps. I am only talking about an extra 4-5 mph. I know some use it at sun-n-fun and reno.
Click to expand...

I am no expert in NO2 but I am very close to Dave Anders and Tracy Saylors and I know that neither one of them used NO2 @ Sun&Fun and they dominated their class. As far as Reno goes, F1, Bi Plane, Sport class and T6 are all prohibited from using NO2, can't vouch for Unlimiteds or Jet Class. :D
Lets hear from the experts.
Tom
 
Nitrous

My boss, Jack Sliker raced his P-51 and later his doomed Bearcat, both on nitrous. For you guys unfamiliar with nitrous, it liberates an enormous amount of oxygen,(whereby it makes extra horsepower) causing the need for enrichment or either burned/holed pistons and or valves. Sliker and others used/use alcohol/water in a 50/50 mix as an ADI (anti-detonation injection) mix. He had around 50 gallons of ADI fluid in the Bear.

My guess is that using nitrous alone, without enrichment, will so lean the mixture that you would really have to be well aware of your airplane's best glide performance!! :)
 
NO2

tin man said:
I am no expert in NO2 but I am very close to Dave Anders and Tracy Saylors and I know that neither one of them used NO2 @ Sun&Fun and they dominated their class. As far as Reno goes, F1, Bi Plane, Sport class and T6 are all prohibited from using NO2, can't vouch for Unlimiteds or Jet Class. :D Lets hear from the experts. Tom
Click to expand...
Thanks Tom, hey could you get me Dave and Tracy's contact numbers. I have stuff I bought off them, great legs, wing tip and inlet rings. I lost the contact numbers. My email is [email protected], thanks.


Tom: Good info, good toi know, but as far as NO2 you have not said anything other than other people don't use it and it's against some rules at RENO. I did not hear it can't be done or is not safe or practical.

Thinking out the box and doing something others are not is what racing is all about. Nothing you said makes this not viable or reasonable form a technical stand point, I think. NO2 is well exploted in the auto world and was used in WWII by the Germans. I don't like NO2 from the stand point it is an expenable comodity needing bottle refills. Not practical for daily use but racing.... that is another thing.

Just because Dave does not do it, does not surprise me. He runs high compression ratios and the HP he's already making is very high. I don't think his engine would take much more. I know he gets his engine rebuilt at Lycon on a very short TBO (400 hours?). Rummor has it he trades dental work for engine work. :rolleyes: He also has his prop overhauled frequently. All is fair in racing. His engine is a racer all the time. My NO2 idea is a relatively inexpensive power normalizer that I can install and remove easily with little effect on the day to day ability to fly it.

The NO2 idea is a little normalizer, not to make ridiculous HP at sea level but just mitigate the loss of power with altitude. It would be more for cross country races like the Airventure or Gold Coast. As far as Sun and Fun I know some have used NO2, because I saw a plane "purge" once. (purge - when you vent excess air and NO2 out the lines to get the lines filled with pure NO2 for instant NO2 shot.) Most races, not Reno, do not have tech inspections or address NO2. They are either based on cubic inch displacment and sometimes (claimed) HP.

I appreciate you throwing stones at my idea. More criticism is needed. I think I could buy a use 20 lb bottle and some basic lines and a manually controlled valve (no electric seloniods or purge valves) and vent it to the air box and try it.

My four biggest self criticisms of the idea are: Weight, cost, endurance and possible damage to engine, the latter being the only real concern. The biggest hurtle was endurance. A 20 lb bottle with a low flow could do wonders at altitude and could go 2 hours. That would be about the time limit. As far as weight I don't think a bottle, lines, manual valve and nozzle will weigh more than 30lb with a full load of NO2? Obviously 20lb bottle means 20lbs of NO2, which will "burn off" during the flight. For a short race like sun-n-fun a smaller 10lb bottle could be used. You could put the bottle in the tail to all aft CG which improves speed. The biggest thing is leaning the mixture too much at high power with application of NO2. Clearly a very sensitive valve with metered (LOW) flow is key, and I'd never use unless at lower power, i.e., at altitude. I suppose you could put a wet system in to add fuel and NO2 together to keep the mixture rich automatically, but that adds more cost and weight. My dry system idea is only for modest 5-15 HP gains while keeping weight light, cost low and installation as simple as possible.
 
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George,

NOS, as the kids call it is interesting stuff. At our races it is prohibited on site, period. You won't be asked back if found with it, even on a street car.

Some of the NOS bottles require heat blankets and these can, and have, overheat the bottle. Can you say BOOM?

Search the net, there was some kid who put one in his car, parked in the garage (of his parent?s house) and went inside. The bottle blew and destroyed the garage and damaged the house fairly good.

If you want this type of advantage, go with a turbo or supercharger, no refills and still some good power. You can even do what a friend did on his 350 RWHP 1.8L Miata, add methanol injection to come on at set boost levels. Methanol is easy to come by; it is used in the blue windshield washer fluid to keep it from freezing. He just ran his injection line from his washer tank to his injector and the small controller is a 12V industrial control module so I'm sure it would hold up under your cowl.
 
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