2011 SARL Wrap-up Video

A Great Little Machine - Another Day at the Races

I just came back from Taylor, TX where I ran the Rocket 100, the last race of the 2011 Sport Air Racing League season.

The plane ran great and this race was a blast. Click here for the official race results.

It was very windy, 17 kts, gusting to 25+, but fortunately, it was right down the runway and I didn't have any trouble there.

There is so much to describe what an air race is like, so many parts - it's impossible for to describe. But, I would encourage any pilots to give it a shot. Anyone with a plane - any plane, can and do run a race. It's challenging, it makes you a better pilot, and it's a terrific bunch of people who speak the same language.

One big highlight was getting a ride in a Twin Beech, with Mark Frederick. (That's Canadian Rocket pilot Wayne Hadley in the right seat).


Mark is THE Rocket F1 guru and owns the Macho Grande homestead, F1 factory and airstrip, about 2.5 miles from the Taylor airport. He was relocating the Beech from Taylor to Macho Grande and I was fortunate enough to bum the ride.

Macho Grande served as both the race starting and finish lines. Here is the SX300 setting the pace for the starting line.


For me, the first big challenge was just finding Macho Grande. As a result, I was a little higher at the start, so I didn't get one of those great head-on photos that Glen took.




In between the start and finish lines was 140 miles of hard bumps, headwinds and a too short leg of excellent tail winds. The really fun part for me was passing two other aircraft, an RV-7 and an O-290 powered VariEze.

When I downloaded my GPS today, it said the highest ground speed for the race was 251 mph! Wow, I sure like those numbers!

That evening, Mark and Cheryl hosted a survivors party at Macho Grande where all sorts beverages were consumed and lies told. A special thanks goes to Mike "Iceman" Thompson the guy crazy enough to organize this whole air race thing.

The ride home was interesting (that's a code word, of course). Had great tail winds and the ride at 7,500 was smooth. The EC3 engine controller is settling down and the resulting performance is great. As you can see in the photo, at 7,600 ft. I had a true airspeed of 170 mph, with a fuel burn of only 4.5 gph. I think with a little more tuning, I should be able to get the fuel burn down a little more. Click to see it better.

I had to land at Walnut Ridge, AR for a while to sort out the weather ahead. An odd thing I haven't seen before, there were a bunch of prisoners running around the FBO. Yes, I mean wearing striped pajamas type prisoners - both male & female. Apparently, there is a correctional facility nearby and the airport uses them to help maintain the airport. Good use of resources, actually.

Be sure and click on the next photo. This needs a caption of some sort.

So, I believe I did five races this year. Maybe next year I'll see some of you out there. I sure hope so.

A good day at the races.

After too much time, I finally got in another SARL race. This one was the Aircraft Spruce sponsored Tennessee Valley Air Race IV. We had a field of 18 aircraft, with three in the Sprint class.

I had only completed my annual inspection test-flight the day before, so it was another episode of wondering how my work was all coming together.

During my annual, I had sent my EFI engine controller back to the factory for a starting modifications. This wiped out the EC3's memory of the fuel air mixture map, requiring another long process of flying and observing an O2 sensor and programming the unit. Blah, blah, complain, complain.

So, whenever I do all this stuff, it's back to being a test pilot again. Well, I was really itching for another race, so I headed down to Courtland, AL. Very much fun.

On the way down, I continued to program the EC3 in both the primary and backup modes.

The race course was shaped like a bow tie, with the start/finish line at the knot. One very cool thing, one of the turns is a Saturn 3 rocket that is standing near a highway. Click on the map to see it better.

My start was terrible, I messed up my GPS and started heading off in the wrong direction! I was a mile or two off course before I got that squared away, all the while I was focusing on the engine, but it was strong, and turned around 3,150 RPM for most of it.

Flying the plane presents all sorts of different challenges during a race. First, the engine naturally sounds different, and the aircraft handles and trims out differently. You have to pay stricter attention to the engine gauges, and keep it exactly on-course, and pay strict attention to altitude.

When I got down, I was sure Dave Adams in his Long EZE had beaten me, due to my extremely poor start. I was really surprised to learn I beat him out by one mile an hour. The icing on the cake, I also won the Aircraft Spruce Diamond Prize - Fastest aircraft with an O-320 or smaller engine. $200 gift certificate - sweet!

Here are the official results: http://www.sportairrace.org/id450.html

When I get on the ground after these things, I am really spent - especially if it's been a while since the last one. But then I was wandering around the ramp thinking to myself, "That was REALLY fun". And it is.

So, go ahead and plan on making a race near you next year. It'll make you a better pilot and you'll have a total blast.

Happy Anniversary Honey.

At the Tandem Wing builders banquet, in Sullivan, MO, October 4, 2003. We got married 14 days later on the 18th.

Performance during the AVC race

If you are interested, I thought I would explain a few things about what is going on here. To see the photo better, click on it and hit Ctrl + a few times and the screen will enlarge.

First off, note the oil temp is 15 deg. That is due to the faulty sensor.

Altitude: 2,860' and a very slight climb. The density altitude is 4,940' with an OAT of 82F.

3,130 RPM WOT, with a fuel flow of 8.0 GPH.

IAS is 194 and TAS is 208 mph.

Look at the cylinder head temps:

#1 409

#2 395

#3 330

#4 366

Cylinder#3 is 79 degrees cooler than#1. Admittedly, #3 is right in the breeze and #1 is furthest back but I think there is something going on here.

One of the racers heard somewhere, from a Lycoming rep, that if your cylinder head temps were lower than 230 degrees, you were loosing speed due to excessive cooling. Kind of makes sense. Maybe I should look into some kind of a cowl flap arrangement to possibly pick up a few extra mph.

What do you think?

2011 Air Venture Cup Race

This year's race wasn't exactly smooth as silk, but at least the plane performed well.

This year there were only three planes registered in the Sprint class, but one had to cancel his entry because his wife was ill. That left me and Dave Adams in his Long-Eze. No Klaus this year.

Sunday, the day of the race, a nasty storm system was pushing down through Wisconsin and Illinois and would probably be in Dayton later in the afternoon. The decision was to made to split the race into two legs, Dayton to Mattoon, IL, then after the storm passed, make it Mattoon to West Bend, WI (near Oshkosh).

We finally got in the air later than we should have and headed west-southwest for Mattoon. One of the fastest planes, Kevin Eldridge in his beautiful NXT racer aborted his takeoff when his canopy flew off. That was the first scratch of the day.

Usually, the fastest planes are off first, but this years starting order was basically a free-for all and I wound up near the end of the pack.

In the air things seemed okay and guys chatted on the race frequency about the upcoming weather. I heard one of the racers announce a return to Dayton for ignition problems.

We started hearing the advance guys talking about the approaching storm. There were black clouds and building turbulence. One of the racers, Mark Quinn said he was encountering moderate turbulence near Mattoon. A minute later his voice raised about two octaves and he announced "Severe turbulence!!".

Well, it was obvious we weren't going to make it to Mattoon and Terra Haute, IN was a convenient place to land. Imagine how it was for the tower and FBO personnel. A quiet Sunday is suddenly interrupted by the arrival of 16 or so race aircraft.

Some racers actually made it into Mattoon. Other aircraft diverted to Effingham, IL, French Lick, IN and some went back to Dayton. After the storm passed, some of the racers elected to just fly on up to Oshkosh, including Dave Adams. What a mess.

The next day, and after the fog and low ceiling lifted, the remaining 16 aircraft flew the race from Terra Haute and we eventually made it into AirVenture at Oshkosh.

There are several side stories to all this, but I am electing to protect the innocent.

So, how did I do? Since I was the only on in the class, I took first place in Sprint at a rather slow speed of 201 mph. We had headwinds and everyone posted slower speeds.

Here are the official results: http://www.airventure.org/news/2011/110727_avcup.html

This was my 21st trip to Oshkosh in my little Quickie.

Dagnabit

The new sensor failed 20 minutes into the flight, when it hit about 200 degrees.

#!@$%&*(!*!*#(!

Plodding Through It All

This morning I passed the time waiting for FedEx by mowing the lawn. I don't get how it grows so much in this flippin heat.

At 11:30 the FedEx van pulled up. Whoo hoo! I sent a text to Steve and told him I was on the way to the hangar. Thanks to Sandy at GRT for getting the replacement out to me ASAP.

We got right at it. If it wasn't for having to pull the engine, replacing this sensor should take all of 15 or 20 minutes. As the engine hung on the hoist, it took us four tries and 30 minutes to just get the damn thing safety wired.

Steve Clarke, the A&P student was a big help. I just had to show him what I needed done and he ran with it. Steve it taking his summer Powerplant Inspections class, so he was on loan for the afternoon.

After chatting a bit it turns out that Steve is the son of Rich Clarke, a fellow jumper in my skydiving club back in East Troy, WI in the late '70s and early '80s. Us aviators are in a small world, aren't we?

After I wired it into the Dynon connector, I turned the D180 on. The oil temp read 102 degrees, which just happened to be the ambient temperature in the hangar.

By 3:45 we were able to shove it out the hangar and run it. Everything seemed to check out okay. Wasn't that all fun?

I put the plane back and will do another inspection tomorrow, then a test flight, then it's time to start counting pairs of underwear for the big trip.

I hope to rendezvous with Dave Adams somewhere over southern Illinois for the trip to Dayton.

And that my friends, is how I keep plodding along.