Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

[bluffman]

Re: September Pops Update

Ken, We didn't throw anything away that was removed from the Sea Fury. As far as I know the seats also went to Sanders. We put all the parts in a pile and told Dennis, I believe it was him,that anything left in the pile when BMB flew he could have. I sold some stuff to Kermit Weeks, but that was only Centaurus engine parts. Be assured though that we didn't throw anything away. Larry

[bluffman]

Re: September Pops Update

This has almost became a Blind Mans Bluff update instead of September Pops. My apologies to M.Brown and his crew members. There seems to be a lot of interest in BMB/ Critical Mass Sea Fury. I have received several private messages, and there have been some posts as well with questions about how and why certain things happened.It has been 20 years now since we took race 88 to Reno, and I think some of you are fairly new to Reno unlimited air racing. I will try to give a little background to how it all started with Blind Mans Bluff and has ended up with the clipped wings on September Pops.

Mr. Eric Lorentzen and his family owned the Levolor Blind Company a manufacturer of mini- blinds. The company colors were orange and black on their trucks, etc. Eric's favorite number was 88. This information will become relevant as I continue this post. In about 1982 or so Eric bought N85SF Sea Fury from a man in Texas I think named Stokes. Some of this is somewhat vague since it was before my time. Lorentzen was having a hangar built at the Scottsdale, Arizona airport for a southwestern flight center for the corporate jets, and he also had some older aircraft that he wanted restored. As I recall, he had the Sea Fury ferried to Scottsdale by Elsworth Getchel. I had just finished a Allison turbine powered sprint car project for a fellow named Steve Bolan. We were racing it at Phoenix International Speedway, and Eric was an old friend of Steve's from New Jersey who just happened to be in town, and he was at the track with Bolan and was helping out with the race car. I had no idea who Eric was, but noticed that he was wearing a Lear Jet hat. Steve had rented a motor home, and after the races we were driving back to Scottsdale.We were chatting about various things and Eric mentioned something about a Sea Fury. This really got my attention, I had met Frank Sanders a few years prior at an Indy Car Race at PIR, and he had told me about his Sea Fury, and told a few stories about flying it, etc. During this trip into town Eric mentioned that his Sea Fury was parked on the ramp at his new hangar at Scottsdale Airport. This really got me exited and I said that I would like to see it, so we went out to have a look. When I saw it my heart started pumping, and the adrenalin was flowing. I told Eric that I would sure like to work on that airplane! He said that anyone who could build a car such as the turbine sprint car should certainly be capable to work on his airplanes. I told him, "I want to work for you". He said that he would be back in town from New Jersey in a couple of months to take possession of the new hangar and we would talk about a job at that time. When he came back and we talked it over he said I had the job, but before I could work on the Sea fury I had to restore a Nord 3202, and a Percival Prentice that he had. A truck load of parts came in with the Nord in a million pieces, mixed in with Howard DGA, Chipmunk, Stearman, and I think some Bt-13 Pieces. To shorten this post, I will skip ahead a bit. I did the Nord and the Percival, and was eager to get to the Sea Fury. Eric was going to fly it to New Jersey for an air show, but shortly after take- off the engine started acting up and he flew back to Scottsdale. Needless to say we were all rather surprised to see him return. The Centaurus was in real sad shape, metal and oil from the exhaust streaming along the fuselage. He told me to sell it, he didn't want to fly it anymore. Gary Levitz had his hangar just up the taxiway from Levolor, so asked him if I could park it in the field next to his hangar. It sat there for some time, and at some point Eric came into town, and the Sea Fury was mentioned as to whether I had any takers on buying it. I told him no, but I said, How about we build her into an air racer. Surprisingly he responded," only if you do it right". I said, "I can do that!" Since after conversations with Frank Sanders, LLoyd Hamilton, and others that I couldn't do it, I decided to call their bluff, and make it happen. So the name became Blind Mans Bluff due to the Levolor Blind Company and calling their bluff. Make sense? As to the color orange, It was not my favorite color, but A.J.Foyt painted his Indy cars what he called "Coyote Orange" and they were beautiful, so in my devious mind I chose that, although it was really 1965 Ford Mustang "Poppy Red". No one ever knew the difference. My fingers are giving out so I will end this post, and continue the saga of BMB later if there is interest in learning more about the caper. Some interesting things about why the vertical fin was as tall as it was, and much more. Larry Burton

[T. Adams]

Re: September Pops Update

Great stuff. As someone who only knows about the history of this sport from Air Classics, I love this stuff. One of these days I'll have to buy Gentlemen You Have a Race.

[MRussell]

Re: September Pops Update

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Thanks so much for sharing, Larry.

[smokeyjoe]

Re: September Pops Update

Please Don't Stop Now Larry !! -- Great Stuff !!

Thanks for Sharing

[zeke]

Re: September Pops Update

This is really interesting guys, thanks for the history and sharing.

I've got a few questions as well that would be interesting to know.

What were the main changes on the aircraft from stock to Blind Mans Bluff (I thought there were some new ideas introduced outside the obvious race mods) and then to Critical Mass. The canopy was different but what other changes? Critical Mass was my favorite looking radial aircraft, not just from the racers but from all the Radials out there, she just seemed to look right to me.

How long was she Blind Man's Bluff? Was she only flown as such for that one year?

I heard the story about Lt. Sheila O'Grady but not about Joanne Osterud.
Was it a similar situation and aviation background for her?

And some more general Sea Fury questions, after hearing about how hard it is to find some parts for one of them them. I think I remember hearing about a Hawker Tempest project grounded by the unavailability to find a Centaurus Motor. Is the Motor that rare? I know there are a few Sea Furies still flying with them, anyone know how many? Is it the first of the motors that will never race again?

Thanks for your time & memories of the project

[Pylon1_Mark]

Re: September Pops Update

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Thanks so much for sharing, Larry.

We are not worthy

Thanks for all the incite Larry - a real fascinating story. Hope it doesn't end anytime soon

[Fly-By Knight]

Re: September Pops Update

Sad to see CM in soooooo many pieces, but it's good to know that she's in great hands, and will be gracing the skies again soon.

Lookin' good, can't wait to see her in the air again!!

FBK

[bluffman]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

Zeke. Your post Regarding BMB, and your comment about the Tempests being restored but they can't find Centaurus engines. In 1998 An Englishman named Nick Grace came to see me, and was interested in my 3350 engine mounts. He had three Tempests and he wanted to put 3350s on two of them and he was trying to rebuild a Napier Sabier H-24 engine for the other one. I sold him two unwelded 3350 mount kits and two 3350 engines. They were shipped to him, but shortly thereafter Nick was killed in an auto accident. He also had a couple of Spitfires, one coverted to a two seater. His wife, Caroline, I think her name was eventially sold or donated the aircraft. I never heard anything about what happened to the engines and motor mounts. I wonder if the Tempests you mentioned are the ones Nick had. Larry Burton

[bluffman]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

Sorry the date I met with Nick Grace was !988, not 98. Typo by me. Larry

[wolfee]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

WOW! This is GREAT stuff!....

Please kep it comming!...

[Chad Veich]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

Absolutely riveting stuff Larry, thanks for sharing! Being a scale modeler myelf I too would be interested in seeing pics of your BMB model project. I helped a friend design and build a small (55 inches or so) model of Critical Mass for warbird racing some years back which was a real head turner out at the field. On another note, I've noticed a Nord out at Scottsdale airport with what appears to be a MP14 radial grafted to the front of it. This is not, per chance, the Nord you put back together is it?

Best regards,
Chad Veich

[bluffman]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

Since I had Eric Lorentzen's approval to do the air racer I had my brother Dale go up to the Levitz hangar and tow the carcass back to the Levolor hangar and we started dismantling the thing. We took it apart completely, I mean "the whole way". Brother Dale started stripping paint as pieces were removed. That was a tough, nasty chore. It had been painted red for use as a target tug by the Germans, and that paint had been badly weathered, and baked by the sun. Beneath the red was the toughest primer Dale and I had ever seen. He's a pretty tough character, and determined to do whatever it takes to make things happen. The wings were removed, horizontal stab, and the tail cone was removed at the production joint. We built fixtures on wheels to hold all the various pieces so that we could move the around easily. I had bought a Sea Fury model kit, 8foot wingspan to do some mock-ups of modifications that I wanted to do. I built the vertical fin to see what it would look like on the model, and it looked like I had hoped it would. I always liked the fin on the "Red Baron" P-51, but a little taller. On one of my trips to Frank Sanders I made a comment on how much better his fin on Dreadnaught looked than the original Sea Fury fin. He told me that they had added 12 inches to the top to compensate for the added torque of the 4360 engine. My thought was that I had to do Frank one better, so I made mine 14 inches taller just to be a smart ass. I already had the shape that I wanted, now I had the heigth that I wanted as well, thanks to Frank. My crew and I took a little break and all just stood back and looked at the fuselage, now stripped of paint and sitting on some stands, and started making all kind of comments, sort of "what ifs" and laughing and scratching, throwing out lots of silly ideas. someone said "what if we put the pilot in the back seat?" I said, "yeah, like the Gee Bee racer of old." This got everyone enthused, and we started talking about the 20 and 30s racers, and it was decided that they all had the pilot back towards the tail, so there must be something to that. Apparentally to streamline the cockpit into the tail. "Sure made sense to us!" Then it became obvious that we would need to lower the top of the fuselage so the pilot would be able to see where she/ he was going. I did some figuring, and determined that if we removed the top of the fuselage from the firewall to the bulkhead just forward of the rear seat, removed all the bulkheads in between it would be a straight shot, and would actually look like a Tempest. The Sea Fury had a raised flight deck so the pilot would have better forward visability for landing on a carrier. So now we had lots of projects to work on, the vertical fin and the fuselage top. The guys got all enthused regarding all this wild stuff, and they say "the chips started flying". I had a great bunch of guys working for me that I will name in my next post. Must stop for now, NASCAR race is coming on. Larry Burton

[bluffman]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

Chad, The Nord 3202 at Scottsdale was one of Lorentzen's, I put into flying condition way back, but that is not the one I fully restored, that one is in Australia. We sold the one you saw to a young man here in town, and he learned to fly in it. He lost interst in flying after a while, and sold it. As I recall the new owner had some engine problems, and although I had a spare Potez, he chose to put the radial on it. Probably a good choice, as Potez parts were very hard to get. Thanks for the inquiry. Larry Burton

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

Larry,

You're bringing tears to my eyes with this invaluable history! Please, keep it coming!

I'm one of the camp who was heartbroken when CM started going back to stock, (not MY money though!) and consider her look as being more "raceplane" than just about any other... something about that rear cockpit and closed front cockpit just did it for me!

Hearing this history adds to the experience about to happen.. RENO!!



THANK YOU!

Wayne