People Who
Race: "Kerch" -
continued from part one Kerch: Well
it's a little different, most
people aren't as interested in
the mechanical end of it as the
flying end.
aafo:
I think the interest in the
mechanical end of things might
surprise you. Getting the
background for the
"nuts&bolts" crowd
is something we really want to do
for our readers.
Kerch:
There's so much behind the scenes
drama and so many stories, things
that are happening, that hardly
anyone knows about that are just
as interesting as the race....it
all leads up that final event.
Win or lose there is tremendous
potential for stories there.
aafo:
we agree! Our last installment in
this series covered Bill Rogers
and the effort with "Miss
Ashley II". A ton of R&D
and much BS&T went into that
airplane, you don't really see
this until the debut of the
aircraft. It's been a popular
story.
Kerch:
He did a magnificent job on that
aircraft! He's a unique guy in
that his perseverance with that
project continued on, I've talked
to him over the years about
it...he's just got a great
attitude.
aafo:
your main involvement is with the
unlimited class, but we hear your
name come up among many racers in
other classes.......
Kerch:
I've got a lot of formula guys
that are friends of mine....sport
bi-plane and on and on....it's
some real competitive racing.
They are every bit as competitive
as any other racing...they are
real racers. I can't tell you how
many airplanes I worked on this
year, sport biplanes and formulas
were all bringing up stuff to get
welded and whatever. To me
there's no differentiation...a
racer is a racer. The guy can't
afford a P-51 Mustang .....this
is as far as he can go with what
he's got and he's out there
racing. And they are very
innovative people, and I am proud
to say that I have stolen a lot
of Formula One ideas for Strega!
aafo:
you mentioned something about a
plastic spoon mod. when we talked
last year...
Kerch:
Exactly... you take a plastic
spoon and remove the stem....
then you make it fit over
whatever is sticking out into the
air stream, a bolt or whatever,
you attach it with silicone, so
you can remove it when you have
to. That was stolen right off of
a formula racer. It is a
wonderful idea! You go down there
and look at what they are doing,
and they have to do it...if this
one little thing gives you a
tenth of a mile an hour, we'll do
ten of these little things and
now we got one mile an hour! You
just keep adding them on and it's
a cumulative thing. Those guys
have got the aerodynamics down,
it's just magnificent what they
can do.
aafo:
earlier you spoke of the
camaraderie in racing...
Kerch:
I've often said why don't we just
come up here and have a Bar-B-Q
and tell lies about how fast we
*can* go <laughing> When
you get to the event, though, you
don't have the opportunity to get
together much, there's just no
time.
aafo:
on that subject.... What about
running more events
annually....it was tried in
Phoenix.. and Mojave.... Could
this ever be more like auto
racing with a "circuit"
of races?
Kerch:
It is hard, two isn't too
bad...the most we've done is four
in a year and that's real tough.
Two is possible. There are a
number of things you need to put
on an unlimited race. One, of
course, you need an un-populated
expanse for the course. The other
is you need accessibility to the
airfield in terms of roads. We've
had other races, one of them at
Brown Field San Diego. It was
fine but the problem was, it was
a two lane road going into the
field, traffic was backed up they
couldn't get in, people were
turning around and going home.
The third thing is the hotel and
restaurant situation...You need
to be able to absorb that number
of people. I remember at the
races at Mojave, there's nothing
there, one motel and one cafe and
that was it, you had to go a long
way. That's a problem you need to
contend with. There's one thing
that Reno and Las Vegas have that
a lot of other places don't have,
they have the ability to absorb
that. Actually even Phoenix had a
problem with hotels because the
race was held during spring
training for baseball there,
hotels were filled up.........
aafo:
we'd like to see more....Vegas
would probably be the most likely
other place that could pull off a
second event, provided enough
airplanes could be fielded for
the events.
Kerch: With
a racing airplane it's pretty
difficult, it's a whole different
animal than an automobile. A lot
ofpeople have tried over the last
few years to use a NASCAR type
format, they would like to have 6
or 8 races a year. To develop an
airplane, and go through all of
the testing that's required, is
not something you can just go out
and do in a couple of months. In
a car if you set it up
differently than you did the week
before it's an easy adjustment,
relatively, you can always go
back to what you had. In an
airplane if you try a different
setup.... change the airfoil,
angle of incidence of the main
wing or the tailplane, whatever
you do to it...the center of
gravity....there's a lot of
things you can do to it to monkey
around with, you might run into a
catastrophic problem. It's a
whole different ballgame. There's
a whole bunch of things you can
do to enhance the flying
qualities that you want from the
airplane....Airplanes are all
compromises, a fighter plane is
no different than any other
airplane. What we have done, for
example, to Strega....is to take
out some of the nice things in
the airplane, we've sacrificed
those for the single purpose of
going fast. Consequently the
landing speed is higher, the
takeoff...it doesn't have a good
rate of climb, it's got a long
take off roll, it has flying
qualities that are a little bit
different in the low end. There
are things that made the airplane
really a delightful airplane,
we've sacrificed some of those
things in the compromise for the
high speed.
aafo:
to a certain extent this is also
done in racing cars, sacrificing
straight ahead stability for
cornering ability etc.
Kerch:
The thing with a race car, you
can go out on a test track to see
if the adjustments work.... In an
airplane, for example, if you
alter some aerodynamics you can
run into a problem with flutter,
you may or may not come back with
all the pieces! Changing the
propeller, for example, we've
been doing that for a number of
years, to get a guy to come out
and do flutter tests on a
propeller we're talking a weeks
worth of work, and it's expensive
to get the testing to insure the
propeller won't encounter a
resonant frequency that will
destroy it. You have to be real
careful when you start doing
these things because you're
talking a catastrophic event.
continue>>
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