Pond Racer Mold

[Samuel]

Picture from 2011, but still cool to see this stuff out there! I think that thing would have been an amazing sport class airplane with a couple Lavelle grade Lycomings on it.

https://loftyambitions.wordpress.com/2011/11/11/palm-springs-air-museum-part-2/

[hm66sk]

Re: Pond Racer Mold

I think that is the plug FOR the mold????

[Race5]

Re: Pond Racer Mold

I think that is the plug FOR the mold????

Correct.

[Dudewanarace]

Re: Pond Racer Mold

Picture from 2011, but still cool to see this stuff out there! I think that thing would have been an amazing sport class airplane with a couple Lavelle grade Lycomings on it.

https://loftyambitions.wordpress.com/2011/11/11/palm-springs-air-museum-part-2/

Pretty cool! But, if you were to do 'normal' airplane engines, they would have to be small. The one and only rule for the sport class is 1,000 cubic inch piston engine. Jeff ran a 580 I suppose the closest thing to 500 cubes each would be the Continental 470 that is in a bunch of Bonanza's right?

Somebody should 3D scan that plug, just so it never really goes away.

[Race5]

Re: Pond Racer Mold

Pretty cool! But, if you were to do 'normal' airplane engines, they would have to be small. The one and only rule for the sport class is 1,000 cubic inch piston engine. Jeff ran a 580 I suppose the closest thing to 500 cubes each would be the Continental 470 that is in a bunch of Bonanza's right?

Somebody should 3D scan that plug, just so it never really goes away.

That air frame had so much intersection drag, among other issues, that it would really be pointless to try and re-engineer it for air cooled conventional engines. A new one off design would be cheaper and could be made much faster in the long run.

[1:1 Scale]

Re: Pond Racer Mold

With one of THESE

[Race5]

Re: Pond Racer Mold

With one of THESE

Packaging and cooling would be a big issue with that shoved in a Sport class sized airframe.

[Idaho_cowpony]

Re: Pond Racer Mold

This thing was a mistake from the first napkin drawing.

A one-off Tsunami type project would be far better suited for the Sport Class. See: NXT

- Joseph

[Dudewanarace]

Re: Pond Racer Mold

Just for the record I do agree, not a great airplane. Not one I would build anyway. But, interesting regardless. Something about old composite tooling laying around always has an interesting story.

[Race5]

Re: Pond Racer Mold

Just for the record I do agree, not a great airplane. Not one I would build anyway. But, interesting regardless. Something about old composite tooling laying around always has an interesting story.

I have heard various claims of how many of the original molds are left. If there are enough of them left it would be cool to pull a fiberglass shell that could be hung in the museum as a tribute to Rick.