Unlimited Air Racing is unquestionably the worlds fastest motorsport, the fastest of the fast race in the Gold-Class, where top speeds can exceed 500-MPH. From its re-birth in 1964, Championship Air Racing's winning entries have most often been World War Two aircraft, specially modified for the extremely high speed, low altitude racing. Supplies of the superbly powerful vintage fighters were plentiful and prices affordable enough to assure a steady flow of new entries to the sport. Sadly, things are different now, Strega Crew Chief, Bill Kerchenfaut tells us; "The day of the inexpensive fighter plane is over"...."When air racing was revived in '64, you could buy a P-51 Mustang for $5000."...."One of the problems we have today with the world war two aircraft is that, there aren't any parts available. The parts that are available are just astronomically expensive....if you can find them!"

Over the last decade many of these aircraft have become so rare and valuable in their original form that several former race planes have been returned to stock configuration, bringing some to conclude the sport might well be doomed. Indeed, the era of new entries from radically chopped and modified W.W.II piston engined fighters is probably gone. Take, for example, the most seen and recognized aircraft on the Reno circuit, the P-51 Mustang. Today, a stock P-51D can fetch a price of $750,000 on the market. The TF-51 (two-place P-51D set up with dual controls for training) commands a price tag of about $1.2 million. It is easy to see that economics and availability now dictate the decline of new racers coming from this formerly plentiful source.

Worried someday there will be no classics raced at Reno? Fear not.... There will probably always be stock or near stock warbirds raced at Reno, but few Gold-Class races will be won by stock warbird airframes. Modification and innovation will always be needed to break into the speed territory Gold-Class aircraft occupy. The very modifications that, unfortunately, lower the ever raising value of the increasingly rare airplanes. The question becomes: Where are we going in this sport? Where will the future winning aircraft come from? It has been suggested, by some very well placed players in this game, that the sport as we know it has but a few years left in it, that a new "unlimited" class will be born within limits on engine size. Others feel that if the racing is not done in a form close that of the present, the sport would indeed die.... Again the question: Where are we going in this sport?

One entry has adopted an approach some feel could be the wave of the future. The Thunder Mustang made its debut at Reno'97. This 3/4 scale P-51D replica is fabricated entirely from carbon fiber composites and aluminum, weighing in at 1/4 the mass of the W.W.II fighter. Even with its normally aspirated Ryan Falconer V-12, 600 HP engine, the power to weight ratio is significantly better than its contemporaries. (best thing about it, even YOU can own one of these birds for the meager sum of $195,000-including engine). With engine mods to boost performance to approximately 1000 HP planned for this year's event, this aircraft may prove a viable Unlimited entry, if not become the model for a future racing series. Although a crowd favorite last year, the Thunder Mustang, even with its new engine, will probably fall short of being a serious contender for top honors in the Gold-Class. This will remain the realm of the "heavy metal" entries for the foreseeable future.

Over the years there have been efforts to bring other completely new racers to the high desert pylons to mix it up with the "big boys on the block". The Pond Racer went in the most radical direction ever seen, totally departing from the known, stepping into the uncharted region of using highly modified automobile racing engines in a radical airframe. Unfortunately the results ended tragically for this promising effort before its potential could be completely evaluated. Tsunami (lost in a non-racing accident) went at it with a sleek custom airframe powered by a highly modified Rolls Royce Merlin powerplant. This design not only proved that it could run with the best of them, it proved to be a Gold winner! Now some 6 years later, we are starting to see some of the effects of John Sandberg's contributions to innovative design. Taking from the known, adding in the new, and applying it in a pragmatic approach can yield winning results. This approach seems to have met with favor among the racing fraternity, as current and future projects are tending to adopt this winning formula. Alternative design solutions are viable and cost effective as well as just plain good looking, some of the projects in the works are wonderfully so.

Several entries using huge radial engines, [also far less rare than the Merlin] on airframes borrowing the best parts from several different types of aircraft, are in various stages of development. Shock Wave, the brainchild of Reno Race legend Darryl Greenamyer, will attempt to best the competition with shear brute force and a blend of proven technology. Powering this aircraft with the massive Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major, the world's largest-ever piston aircraft engine, is just the start. Add to that the outer wing sections of a Hawker Sea Fury, the tail section of an F-86 Saber, the prop from a Lockheed Electra and a prop spinner from a C-130. Darryl's formula is a sound approach that has the potential to stand the competition on its collective ear. Matt Jackson and Dave Cornell also feel that this is the correct formula, their new custom racer (known as the Jackson/Cornell Racer) will be quite similar. The aircraft design utilizes a Wright R-3350 Turbo Compound Radial engine, the wings and vertical tail from a T-2 Buckeye, an F-86 horizontal stab, and the cowling from a DC-7. All of this mated to a custom built fuselage. Mr. Awesome (currently named Red Heat, profiled in an earlier story) is yet another attempt to marry the best of the "tried-and-true" components into a hybrid aircraft winning formula.

This brings us to another player in this game. Several months ago we heard of a project still on the drawing board, we spoke with the developer, Hal Dantone, about his "dream" airplane...... "I can tell you that it looks like Tsunami, but with swept wings and composite skin". This vision certainly got our attention...we wanted to know more."Basic concept is to use same engine as Strega, but design the fuselage and wing for the purpose of racing. Hopefully, get a better prop using newer technology. Modular for maintenance. Composite skin to enhance laminar flows. Plus a few transonic aero devices to help it go even faster before it hits the wall of compressibility drag." When Hal began talking about a device under development (patent panding) that could turn the inherent drag penalty of the radiator into a speed/thrust advantage..... things around here suddenly became very silent.......

AAFO will bring you up to date on Hal's project, Intrepid, in an upcoming exclusive report; including his basic design approach, all technical aspects as well as R&D currently being done on the exciting cooling system. This is one story that NO race fan will want to miss......

By: Wayne Sagar and Mark Kallio