Chasing Rare Bear

We're going to Reno this year. I'm pretty excited.

 

Remember the development but never heard the full story. Thanks.

I saw Tsunami a couple of times but never Pond Racer. Thought Pond Racers engine choice was a big mistake from the beginning. Always thought there must have been a big sales pitch on that one because there were better choices. Once the plane was designed around them that was pretty much it. They kept beating that dead horse until it finally crashed.

It is too bad they have restricted Unlimited class to warbirds. Kind of defeats the intention the class is named for and ignores the history of the sport. Guess in a way it is why I am not the fan I once was.

 

You bring back a lot of great memories from the Cleveland Air Races when I was a kid. Roscoe Turner, Gordon Isreal, Jimmy Doolittle, Benny Howard, and many more people that designed, built, and raced their own airplanes. Some of them still inspire...Granville brothers, Wedell Williams,etc. I think that the warbirds have had their day and it's time to innovate.

 

Bob- Affirmative, most people do not realize Jimmy Doolittle won a Schneider Cup round for the USA. They always just associate him with the Tokyo raid and 8th AF.

 

And a lot of the 'warbirds' are modified so much that they only look similar to their roots, like Tsunami.

 

Became famous partly because he raced the Gee Bee and lived.

 

With Rutan and people like him you would think we could get beyond a chopped F8F.

Rare Bear is a real piece of work but in the end it is still a collection of parts and technology from 70 years ago. Indy cars gave up on Offys a long time ago.

 

Well, there was Rutan's "Pond Racer"

RIP.

As was said above, engine choice was ???

 

Mitsubishi V-6's if my memory serves me. It was obvious to me that that entire project was pushing things way beyond practicality and safety. I keep thinking of the old adage, " There is no substitute for cubic inches. Except more cubic inches."

 

^^Nissans rather than Mitsubishi. A friend ran the engines here in race cars using parts from the GTP program, 1200hp was achieved using 80s era F1 turbos - old tech nowadays - boiling off several hundred gallons of water at the dyno in the process.

Can't imagine them coping with WOT runs for extended periods in airframe use. Fitting reduction gearboxes in those nascelles must have been a major feat too.

 

My error. I was thinking Nissan but wrote Mitsubishi. The Nissan V-6 is a pretty good little engine I'm told.

 

Bob- Unfortunately not too reliable when you were trying to make 1000 hp through a gear drive in cramped locations with 4 quarts of oil. The R2800s in our T-29s puked that much oil on the ramp during preflight.

 

I know, Terry. Pushing an engine far beyond its optimum design point is not conducive to long life or reliability.

 

In a race car 10 seconds at full output is very unusual. As I recall one of the engine builders I knew told me 8 seconds was the longest any of his motors saw 100% output on any track. In an airplane, that is not even a takeoff roll.

 

Seems like both of those aircraft ended up killing their pilots. The Rutan one from running out of oil, naturally.

 

Interesting article in the OP, thanks for posting.
Amazing to me that a radial still holds the record.

Here's some nice vintage video from Reno in the 80s. "Buzz Hill" was a pretty exciting vantage point to watch the race!

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX7GdINzRus[/ame]

P-38 super low pass at 3:51 :O

 

The F-8F was the smallest aircraft they could build around the R2800. Consider its dry weight was ~7000 lbs vs an F-6F Hellcat at ~9000 lbs and a P-47D at ~11,000 lbs. Rare Bear weighed only a little over 3000 lbs dry.

 

3.000 lbs???? wow.

That's amazing. Less than half production weight.

 

Interesting article. Great video!! I was there at the races in 86 and 87. My parents bought a house in Incline Village in 85. So we went every year from then until 98 when they sold the house.

 

Worked with Bruce Boland and Pete Law in Burbank. A bunch of us young engineers road tripped to Reno in '87 to watch Tsunami and lend a hand. Too much tweaking and not enough testing doomed Tsunami. Great bird though... The sound of the Unlimiteds running the circuit was awesome!

 

The lack of a controlled and progressive testing program on these birds is one of the things that kills them. The lack of sound engineering was one of the faults in airplanes like Tsunami. Structural overloads and flutter is what has caused the demise of the last two modified racers, I was told.