A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

[Tigercat24]

Re: A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

While we're at it, we've had quite a few aircraft with new "do's" in the past couple of years:

-Voodoo got a reprofiled wing in 2010.
-September Fury got it's Gold-winning wings back in 2011.
-Strega (alledgedly) received cowl tweaks last year.
-Czech Mate just received a brand new wing in its entirety.
-Rare Bear closed her wing roots for the first time in history, has a cowl intake for the 2nd time in history, a new wing leading edge fillet, and something other than white paint on the top-side of the wing for the first time in decades.
-Precious Metal received reworked wing tips and under-the-skin goodies in 2011, a new prop last year, and will be unrecognizable this year...not to mention that it will have a fresh new racing Griffon for the first time in quite some time.

The only "top-dog" that hasn't had redo's in recent history is Dreadnought...not a surprise

[Big_Jim]

Re: A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

I agree on the weight and wetted area.

My plus points for this particular Sea Fury:

1. Great wing design to begin with, further profiled by the old MB crew.
2. Being bedfellows with with the Hinton brothers at Chino.
3. Hoot's racing line...smooth, tight and clean...looked like he was hugging the corners quite well last year.
4. Wing length...don't get me wrong, I loved the way 232 looked with the old Critical Mass / Miss Merced short wings, but it was probably not enough wing for that big airframe to stay tight in the corners at speed. I'm thinking that the move back to stock length (which 232 won with in 2006) was a wise call to begin with, and with the course being tightened again, those "long" wings could pay dividends in the corners.

And let's not forget that this Sea Fury already has a history of silencing the nay-sayers

You mean the year that it won when none of the modified Mustangs OR the Bear were in the final?

Maybe you should watch the races with Lola. I hear she's going to be there...with some shirts.

[Tigercat24]

Re: A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

You mean the year that it won when none of the modified Mustangs OR the Bear were in the final?

You mean the year that Strega was hounding it around the course until it popped the Merlin.

[ChrisMX105]

Re: A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

But with that said, the Witch still has another 20-30mph that we simply have not seen....

- Joseph

Neither will Tiger..................

Another 20-30 mph from Strega would require a boiloff. And that would require a stupidly large pile of money.

[Race5]

Re: A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

Maybe you should watch the races with Lola. I hear she's going to be there...with some shirts.

Hot coffee hurts coming out of my nose...

[Tigercat24]

Re: A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

Maybe you should watch the races with Lola. I hear she's going to be there...with some shirts.

And as far as 'Lola' goes, no thanks...I'd rather shove my parts in a meat grinder. She reminds me of "Irma Girnyte", the 'person' (I say that loosely) that was in all of the air racing groups that posted way too much to be real...and whose profile photo was too clean and time on FaceBook too short...and all of the posts sounded like advertisements.

She was even in the AeroShell Aerobatic Team group...and as someone who has had the privilege of riding shotgun with Gene McNeely in the slot position, I took a bit of offense

[flyingjibus]

Re: A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

No one beats a healthy Rare Bear.

[CRJpilot]

Re: A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

No one beats a healthy Rare Bear.

Except maybe a healthy Strega or Voodoo. . .

Don

[flyingjibus]

Re: A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

Except maybe a healthy Strega or Voodoo. . .

Don

Nope.

[ChrisMX105]

Re: A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

Nope.

Czech Mate and PM..................

Czech Mate will be interesting to see.

PM, Thom and Crew have taken this racing thing seriously, I am gonna say there will be a lot of jaws dropping when they hit the course.....

[RAD2LTR]

Re: A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

Czech Mate and PM..................

Czech Mate will be interesting to see.

PM, Thom and Crew have taken this racing thing seriously, I am gonna say there will be a lot of jaws dropping when they hit the course.....

I agree, I ran into Wild Bill Kelso at the Santa Rosa airshow (he noticed I was wearing a PM shirt, one of 3 other people besides himself). We talked for awhile and yeah, they took this racing thing very seriously. They found some power, cleaned up the aerodynamics, and optimized the plane for the course as best they could. Oh yeah, the reason the canopy looks the way it does is for a reason, and its not for a second seat.

I can't wait to see the final product. Its not going to be a slouch.

I've never seen Czech Mate in person, I look forward to seeing it. It was showing some good speed before it was taken apart, I'd have to guess the changes made will add a little more speed. The only thing that kinda worries me is the fact that there is some heavy iron running up front and CM is not that big. With 232, PM, the Bear, then Strega and Voodoo up front, it could be a bumpy ride for the Yak. Who knows, they might drop the hammer coming down the shoot and run away from everyone

Will

[Mluvara]

Re: A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

No one beats a healthy Rare Bear.

I find it funny that the Bear is "always down on power". Thus, what year has the Bear been healthy?

To date, the fastest it has gone on the course for a full race is either 1991 or in 2003 chasing Dago depending on how you calculate things.

Dago is still the fastest Gold racer in a heat race at Reno.

Michael

[ChrisMX105]

Re: A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

I think that when the Bear has made full power the aerodynamics have not been up to snuff.

I have been there when it was running right and speeds were insane, unfortunately it was not on the course.

[RichH]

Re: A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

I find it funny that the Bear is "always down on power". Thus, what year has the Bear been healthy?

Michael

I would say 1991. after that, the $$ was gone and riding on thin air if anything happened mechanically. Though, the Bear seemed plenty healthy when it qualified @ 491+ on the old course in 1996. After that qual run, 500 HP supposedly was lost somewhere in the blower drive.

$$ is now back in the equation, but after much tweaking of the beast... they weren't even able to best what the machine had done previously. Let's hope they are on the right track with this latest change in direction!

[Smee Again]

Re: A Sea Fury Fan's Lament

Nope.

So the Bear was less than completely healthy in 2003 when it broke the previous all-time average race speed record? (481+ in 1991) Unfortunately, in doing so, it still came up well short vs. Dago's 507+ current race record in that same race. Sorry, but the Bearcat has never been anywhere close to that.

SA

BTW, the Bear even held pole position in that race!