The Pond Racer.....Rutan's Watergate

[speeddemon]

Re: The Pond Racer.....Rutan's Watergate

Speaking of facts, we really don't know what kind of impact forces the pilot's pod was actually subjected to, or from what direction. You can only make a plane so strong without making it too heavy to fly, regardless of choice of materials. It's impossible to make a plane survivable in all crash circumstances. Even those praised F1 cockpits can be destroyed under the right crash conditions.

THANK YOU for pointing this out! This is the same thing I have been trying to explain to people about the hydroplane cockpits that we build for years. There have been some terrifying accidents, where the F-16 canopy, and the composite 'egg-shell' cockpit have been decimated. And everyone screams that 'it didn't work'. To that, I say bull$hit. The safety cells are designed to collapse, crack, absorb the impact, do whatever it's supposed to do to protect the driver. After an accident, there's almost always some kind of damage done.

So if the Pond Racers' pod was damaged....okay. That doesn't mean that it didn't do it's job of absorbing the impact.

These things aren't designed to be bulletproof. You shouldn't expect to just be able to brush the dirt off them and go out and race in the next heat. They're designed to protect the driver ONE TIME.

[First time Juke]

Re: The Pond Racer.....Rutan's Watergate

Ah, but you said it was a poor design. What is posted above appears to be a builder problem.

It was not a builder problem. Winfoil was inadequate for especially in cases like recovery from a spin AFAIK.

[Red]

Re: The Pond Racer.....Rutan's Watergate

I'd like to make a couple of points after reading through all of the posts.

1. Space girl says the pod was designed poorly and failed. I disagree. Rick survived the impact and expired in the fire. Sounds like the pod worked to some extent. The end result is the same unfortunately.

2. Someone also mentioned the lack of performance comapared to the RV, Glassair and Lancair type aircraft. You completely missed Rutan's whole design philosiphy. They are supposed to be economical, easy to build, EASY TO FLY!! aircraft, and they are exactly that! They were never designed to get every last knot per h.p.

It sure was a bummer about the Pond racer. I really wanted to see it go fast, but even to my untrained eye the power plant choice was suspect.

I'm not a huge Rutan fan but I will get in anybodys corner who will put out so much to design a racer for one race a year with little more than the possibility of an "atta boy" in return, so we the fans can all get a show.

I miss seeing Rick. I also miss seeing the guys trying to do their own thing with the homebuilt unlimiteds. I love the creativity.

~Red

[King]

Re: The Pond Racer.....Rutan's Watergate

It was not a builder problem. Winfoil was inadequate for especially in cases like recovery from a spin AFAIK.

If you read the Mandatory Ground & Elevator Inspection bulletin as shown in the .pdf file above, you would see that builders were not following the instructions on building and balancing thier elevators. Therefore, they were having flutter problems and crashing.

[kenf]

Re: The Pond Racer.....Rutan's Watergate

Red,

I can't let you get away with giving Rutan credit for desgning and building a racer for "little more than .. an 'atta boy' in return". If you want to be in somebody's corner for risking a lot to give the fans a show, be in Bob Pond's corner ( or Rick Brickert's). Rutan's 'atta boy' consisted of several million dollars of Bob's money and he got that without winning or putting on a good show.

[Red]

Re: The Pond Racer.....Rutan's Watergate

Ken

After I re-read my post I see where you would get that impression. I actually meant Bob Pond when I wote that. I fully realize Burt was well paid for the project. Sorry for the confusion.

~Red

[AirDOGGe]

Re: The Pond Racer.....Rutan's Watergate

Originally Posted by King:
Ah, but you said it was a poor design. What is posted above appears to be a builder problem.


REPLY:
It was not a builder problem. Winfoil was inadequate for especially in cases like recovery from a spin AFAIK.

As far as EZ and eze spin performance, I do know the designs of his canard aircraft were intended to help prevent pilots from entering a spin in the first place compared to rear-elevator designs (by making it so difficult to stall and roll over). What happens if you somehow find a way to enter a spin in a varieze or long-ez, I can't say, but it must have taken some effort to get there.

There may be some grain of truth behind the comment about an inadequate forward wing design though. In the PDF file, a short-chord elevator was part of the early varieze design, and it was later recommended that owners stop flying until they replace it with an improved longer chord design (there's even a photo of a short-chord elevator modified into the longer unit).

I have found no documentation mentioning that the forward canard airfoil was a poor design in itself, but there is text saying that it's shape, weight and balance were extremely critical. It's always possible that the shape did have problems, so if you run across such text mentioned anywhere, please post a link to it.

----------

Before I could feel comfortable saying that Rutan couldn't design a winning unlimited racer, I'd have to see what he could come up with under HIS OWN specifications. I believe the Pond Racer had a large number of compromises set by Bob Pond himself that Burt would not have selected if he had the full privilege of choice. Perhaps Burt would have gone with something more along the lines of the Boomerang twin layout.

Maybe someday, somebody will put up the funds for a new unlimited racer and give Burt full leeway to design it all to his liking, and then we will find out for sure. Until then (if ever), I will withhold my opinion of his racer-building abilities.

Of course, if Mr. Rutan doesn't feel comfortable building racers anymore after the loss of Rick, I can fully understand that position. I think I'd feel that way too.

.

[AirDOGGe]

Re: The Pond Racer.....Rutan's Watergate

Addition to my last post:

A search for articles mentioning canard spin problems came up dry, but I did run across some good related stuff (isn't the internet wonderful?):


Loss of Varieze canard lift in rainy conditions:

http://www.ez.org/cp43-p1.htm

Good text about designing the Varieze, which includes mentioning problems resulting from owners making mods to the original design.
(It also mentions where the canard airfoil shape originated):

http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/aero/aircraft/rutan_eze.htm

This page about spin resistance gives a good description of all the research and testing of the Varieze design among others, including "wind-tunnel force and free-flight studies of a subscale VariEze model and wind-tunnel force, moment, and pressure studies of a full-scale VariEze model"
(great shots of the long-gone OMAC too!):

http://oea.larc.nasa.gov/PAIS/Concept2Reality/spin_resistance.html

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(I don't know about other folk, but I love reading this stuff! The more I read & learn, the better I understand the true situations. I'm saving copies of all these sites for later reviewing in full when I have time).
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Unintentional spin in a Long-EZ
(No mentiion of airfoil problems, but a weight/balance problem of that particular aircraft is mentioned):

http://www.ez.org/cp36-p4.htm

Finally, this page at EZ.org is filled to the brim with articles about problems and solutions with canard/pushers. I don't see any title mentiioning spin problems with airfoils, but I haven't visited even a fraction of the articles yet. Looks like a treasure chest of info though:

http://www.ez.org/canard.htm

================================================== ==

Well, I can't find anything mentioning problems of the airfoil associated with raindrops or flaws in surface finish. I did find several places mentioning that there was extensive spin testing done to the aircraft, with no mention of problems surfacing.

I also found text verifying Red's reply to the comment about the lack of performance compared to the standard configuration RV, Glassair and Lancair. The stall resistance and safety factor of the canard design is a trade-off for performance and top speed. You simply cannot have both max speed and maximum stall/spin resistance in any aircraft design that I am aware of.


My apologies to all if I overdid it a bit with my postings, but this is a subject with many points and areas of discussion, and I wanted to cover as many as possible to avoid any confusion or misunderstandings with my comments.
.

[First time Juke]

Re: The Pond Racer.....Rutan's Watergate

Loss of Varieze canard lift in rainy conditions:

http://www.ez.org/cp43-p1.htm

This was the incident I was referring to ( moist conditions ).

[Kevin L]

Re: The Pond Racer.....Rutan's Watergate

Has anyone ever figured out why the engines on the Pond Racer were constantly overheating? I have always suspected the "g" loads caused a restriction of coolant flow. It seemed to be fine in straight and level flight. The automotive based racing engines were never designed for the air racing enviroment. I wonder if a boost pump for the coolant could have overcome the effect of race conditions.

Just pure conjecture on my part. I'm sure someone here has more knowledge of it than I do.

Kevin

[AirDOGGe]

Re: The Pond Racer.....Rutan's Watergate

Originally Posted by AirDOGGe:
Loss of Varieze canard lift in rainy conditions:

http://www.ez.org/cp43-p1.htm

Juke's reply:
This was the incident I was referring to ( moist conditions ).

There's a lot of accidents on that ez.org page. I wonder if the accident you referred to is there? I haven't reviewed them yet. I only read so far of one EZ or eze takeoff accident that was due to improper weight and/or balance.


TYPO NOTE:

In my prior post, I stated:
"Well, I can't find anything mentioning problems of the airfoil associated with raindrops or flaws in surface finish. "

What I meant to say was:
"Well, I can't find anything mentioning problems of the airfoil EXCEPT THOSE associated with raindrops or flaws in surface finish. " The time-limit for editing posts ran out before I could correct it. Sorry about that
.

[Victor Archer]

Re: The Pond Racer.....Rutan's Watergate

Well I understand everything now it's all so clear to me.
It's either "this sort a thing or that kind of a deal"

[First time Juke]

Re: The Pond Racer.....Rutan's Watergate

There's a lot of accidents on that ez.org page.

Right it is not the NTSB report that I tought it was. I try to find it for you.

Here is more about John Denver crash.

http://www.provide.net/~pratt1/ambuilt/liabhome.htm

These NTSB reports indicate that a Vari Ez is ok flyer after engine failure:

http://www8.landings.com/cgi-bin/nph-nntsb_connect?pass=12345&file=nntsb_199205.dat&pos=298960

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=29141&key=0

Here is a NTSB report of a fatal accident with Vari-Ez type of aircraft ( not a Vari-eZ THAT IS ).

http://www8.landings.com/cgi-bin/nph-nntsb_connect?pass=12345&file=nntsb_199508.dat&pos=657712

Apparently like this Reno visitor:

http://www.berkutengineering.com/media/reno1.jpg

Vari-Ez accident due to corrosion:

http://ez.org/corrosion.htm

Here is a bad example with a vari-Eze ( from: http://www.airsidevillage.com/tenxsafer.html ):

***4. Don't buzz things
Flying very low over houses and people and buildings has a long and stupid tradition in aviation. I remember when I heard that Jimmy (yes that was his real name) had killed himself and his stepson with a high-speed crash of a Vari-Eze sport plane in the mountains of Tennessee. He was buzzing a house where a friend of his lived when he hit the ground at about 200 mph. The largest piece left of the airplane after that crash was about three feet long. I will spare you the description of Jimmy.***

One Vari-Eze accident here: http://www.iflyamerica.org/accidentinfo.asp

[First time Juke]

Re: The Pond Racer.....Rutan's Watergate

12 pages of accidents related to canard wing aircrafts here:

http://70.183.88.150/phpBB2/search.php?search_id=513082432&start=200

Very interesting.

[First time Juke]

Re: The Pond Racer.....Rutan's Watergate

If link above don't work try this: http://70.183.88.150/phpBB2/search.php?mode=results

Type in accident or accidents.