Another Oshkosh

Another year, another race.

The race went well, since I posted my fastest course time ever at 202.03 mph. Eric Whyte, the race's grand poobah, pointed out that since my speed was the same as my N number, I should consider changing my registry to N302SH, in advance of next year's race.

I was feeling pretty good when I showed up, until I found Klaus had entered. But, the first thing is to fly the course and land safely, then all else follows after that.

The plane flew well and the engine hummed along at 3,050 RPM. My oil temp never got above 190 and the cylinder temps stayed around 325, so my cooling system is working very well. Again, a full plenum and no oil cooler is all you need.


We had seven planes in the Sprint class, although nine had pre-registered. Though I took third place, I did manage to beat a Lancair 235, an RG Velocity and a Long-Eze. There was also a Glastar in our class, but he's not exactly what you would call competitive.

All told, there were 60 aircraft registered in the various classes and I managed to best 22 of them, including a whole mess of RVs.

Naturally, winning isn't everything, but it is fun to pass other planes on the course. I see my GPS recorded my max speed as 196 kts. - sure would have been nice to be my race speed.

So what next? Every year, after the race, I wander around Oshkosh and look for things I can do to pick up an extra knot or two. Actually the list is long:

* Prop extension to 8 inches, to better streamline the cowl.
* Straighten out the tail spring to fair better into the fuselage.
* Convert to exhaust augmentation.
* Smaller cooling nostrils.
* Replace 9:1 pistons with 10:1.
* Chop the oil sump down to fair better into the bottom of the canard.
* Make the air intake smaller.
* Remove the tail light fairing from the top of my vertical fin.
* Better fairing where the elevator meets the fuselage.
* Install a smaller carburetor, such as an Aero Carb, to allow me to
cut down the cowling.
* Higher tech prop.

But as I was flying home I thought "You know, a guy could buy a Q-200 virgin kit and cut the fuselage down the middle and make it a single seat Super Quickie (a Slickie?). Cut a foot, or so, off the wings, install an O-200 - then I'd give those guys a run for their money!

Anyway, it's all fun and there's nothing like building, flying and racing a plane you built yourself. Keep at it guys, the prize is on your horizon.
The other thing I wanted to mention, was that this year I picked up my "This Classic Homebuilt Has Been Flying for 20 Years" prop tag.

Here are the race results.