Blue skies, Doc!

[BuckyD]

Re: Blue skies, Doc!

Thanks for this, Buck -- a very nice tribute to a very important man...

I've been planning to post some of my shots of The Doc from over the years, but obviously have not gotten to them yet.

Neal

Thanks back at you, Neal! You've already got some really great Doc portraits included in the great reposted article about our friend. I know you & Birgitta still have some classic yet unpublished shots of Dr. Thorn to treat us to someday in the future, and I'm certain they're well worth waiting for to see & enjoy, as always.

Here's a pair of photos of The Merlin Wizard 'at work' on VOODOO, taken Mon. 9/13/99 over by the Wash Rack, following Race #5's prop overspeed Mayday. Dwight's shown assisting the Unlimited Tech Inspector, by checking propellor play, while providing his wealth of diagnostic experience to help determine the extent of damage to Bob Button's racer. Note the very slick custom-fabricated 1-piece composite upper engine cowling being easily removed in the first photo.

DBD

[BuckyD]

Re: Blue skies, Doc!

Lately, a certain Super Sea Fury ( ) seems to be the 'Hot Topic' of discussion 'across-the-message-boards' these days.

Some air racing fans might not be aware of the fact that our dearly-missed- 'Wizard of Merlins' - Dr. Dwight Thorn, was also closely-involved w/this particular Corncobbed Hawker's air racing roots.

Keeping Doc's tribute candle burning, here are a two sets of archive photos of Dwight w/this particular British Beast- shown at its' first couple of Reno attendances. DBD

Photo 1 (w/detail) - Mon. 9/12/83:

Dwight Thorn - standing at right & wearing his favorite work duds, surveys the business end of owner/pilot- Lloyd Hamilton's Race #15 - HEAD GORILLA (NX4434P, a.k.a. - 'Havnaught'), & talking w/Dixon Smith.* Race #16 - BABY GORILLA (N588), Hamilton's original Sea Fury Unlimited racer, is spotted alongside. Unfortunately, #15's R-4360 was lunched, before Hamilton could get his newly-prepared Sea Fury qualified.

* Dixon Smith's ID via Hamilton Sea Fury crew vet- Jim Long, who further noted: "Dixon was instrumental in the research of mating a R-4360 to a Sea Fury airframe. I believe that Dixon had been an engineer w/Boeing at that time." (Corroborated by Larry Rengstorf).

Photo 2 - Sun. 9/9/84 / Cockpit portrait - Sat. 9/8/84:

Lloyd's big bird displaying new crimson & gold feathers for its' sophomore run at Reno Unlimited competition, w/engine man- Dwight Thorn in the cockpit, starting-up FURIAS' Wasp Major. (That's veteran crew chief Larry Rengstorf-standing-by, at photo center.) **

** Jim Long notes f/this photo: "In the picture of Dwight starting Furias, the late Bob Johnson is standing out front and to the right (at the nose). Bob had been the Director of Restoration at the Pima Air Museum and helped us out tremendously, as well as other air race teams."

(Big Thanks to Jim Long & Larry Rengstorf for the additional data on these photographs to add to the Hamilton Air Racing team history. DBD 1/12/09)

[MRussell]

Re: Blue skies, Doc!

Dwight's shown assisting the Unlimited Tech Inspector, by checking propellor play, while providing his wealth of diagnostic experience to help determine the extent of damage to Bob Button's racer. Note the very slick custom-fabricated 1-piece composite upper engine cowling being easily removed in the first photo.

DBD

DBD - No threadjack intended, but I learn so much from your posts that I have to ask this question... what is the function of an Unlimited Tech Inspector? I know why we have them in auto racing (because car racing is anything BUT unlimited) but why do The Unlimiteds have them? Is he checking to make sure it's piston powered and meets a minimum weight? (okay that question is a joke but it points out my serious lack of understanding on this matter).
Thanks and keep 'em coming!
-Matt

[BuckyD]

Re: Blue skies, Doc!

No problem, Matt.

In a nutshell- Each & every one of the racing classes have official tech inspectors assigned to them & every racer that's been formally-entered for competition, must pass their inspections before they're allowed to race. This requires all entry aircraft to pass basic established FAA airworthiness maintenance standards mandatory for safe flying, and to help regulate certain class rule restrictions for those racing classes having strict limitations on design & operational equipment. The stock T-6 Class, obviously has more stringent parameters for tech inspection than the Unlimited Class.

Tech Inspections are conducted in order to keep our favorite sport both SAFE & honest in complying with the set rules of competition.

Even though the UNLIMITED Class has the fewest class-required restrictions, (must be- 'piston-engined, propeller-driven, w/specific minimum weight' - and can be totally- 100-per-cent: 'experimental category', if so desired), all maintenance & modifications MUST comply w/airworthiness standard practices established for use by all types of aviation in the U.S. (No shoddy 'Rube Goldberg' work allowed! ).

Any infractions identified by the Tech Inspection team must be addressed & remedied on-site before you're allowed to race. Some discrepancies found might be serious enough to warrant disqualification from competition (or even possible grounding of the aircraft by the FAA), and those which might be considered 'gray area' items might be resolved via a voted decision by the class governing body.

Hopefully, Matt, this response is accurate & will be sufficiently answer your question. Otherwise, being as this thread's dedicated to Dwight Thorn's memory & career, suggest you start a new thread - inviting air racing insiders to provide site readers w/more detailed specifics. I'm sure there's plenty of points for discussion on the topic of air racing Tech Inspection worth covering. DBD

[BuckyD]

Re: Blue skies, Doc!

More Dr. Dwight Thorn - Circa Reno '92 NCAR...


Color photos: Sunday - 9/13/92, Doc moving Strega w/The Red Rooster tug.

B&W photos shot seven days later: Sunday - 9/20/92, Doc w/Kerch, Tiger & Team Strega crewmates, joining veteran air race announcer- Sandy Sanders at the podium, to collect their Unlimited Gold Championship winner's trophy, amid a cheering congratulatory crowd to culminate the 1992 RARA Awards Banquet.

DBD

[David E. Wells]

Re: Blue skies, Doc!

Reno NCAR - 9/15/02 - RARA Sunday Awards Banquet:

Bill Kerchenfaut, Unlimited Class air racing's winningest crew chief, presented Dwight with a specially-commissioned original artwork illustrating his career highpoints. (artist name?)
DBD

That would be me...David E. Wells...D.

[BuckyD]

Re: Blue skies, Doc!

That would be me...David E. Wells...D.

Thank you very much, David, for getting my memory back on track about your artist credit. I really thought it was your fine work, but wasn't 100% sure, so took the safer route with the photo caption text. (Note: even tried to use this search feature & google web search, etc. to pull up the subject hoping to pin it down that way).

I edited the photo post caption text to get it right this time, thanks to you. Keep up the fine artwork you do so well.

Best regards, your fan- DBD

[David E. Wells]

Re: Blue skies, Doc!

Thank you very much, David, for getting my memory back on track about your artist credit. I really thought it was your fine work, but wasn't 100% sure, so took the safer route with the photo caption text. (Note: even tried to use this search feature & google web search, etc. to pull up the subject hoping to pin it down that way).

I edited the photo post caption text to get it right this time, thanks to you. Keep up the fine artwork you do so well.

Best regards, your fan- DBD

Thanks Bucky! You do some Fine work yourself!...D.

[BuckyD]

Re: Blue skies, Doc!

Another Flying Thoroughbred Heart Transplant... (-"Is there a Doctor in the house?!?")

For Reno '97 NCAR, Unlimited race plane owner- Bob Button initiated an ambitious program to upgrade his P-51D #55 VOODOO CHILE to a Strega-clone configuration. The extensive airframe race modifications were done to the Mustang at Bill 'Tiger' Destefani's hangar shop facility in Shafter, Ca. by Tony Corbo & L. D. Hughes, under Tiger's direction, w/a Dwight Thorn race-prepared Merlin engine installed. A radical custom-designed purple racing paint scheme was drawnup as well.

Unfortunately for Team Voodoo, time ran-out on them before all tasks were completed, and they barely got the racer back together to make the arrival deadline for that year's Unlimited Class competition at Reno-Stead Field. The new turtledecked-VOODOO came to race nearly-naked, in mostly unpolished bare aluminum finish - the paint scheme would have to come later.

Nonetheless- Voodoo race pilot- "Hurricane" Bob Hannah logged a respectable qualification run on Wed. (9/10/97) of 403.897-mph, matching Dennis Sanders' speed in #19 Sea Fury, to tie for the 6th-fastest Unlimited Q-time. Hannah turned-over racing duties to pilot Sherman Smoot - to allow Bob to depart the races to attend funeral services following the sudden death of a close friend.

Smoot very capably flew Voodoo to 2nd-place in Thurs. UNL HT-1A @ 394.402-av/mph, behind Bill Rheinschild's P-51 #45 Risky Business, but a torched-piston forced Sherm's Lap-2 Mayday exit the following day during HT-2A. The Button team's Thorn motor was thus finished, but they weren't about to throw in the towel just yet, and a marathon motor swap effort was launched to install their available Merlin ferry engine. After the team endured a grueling Saturday all-niter- the crew had #55 ready for Smoot to race their Mustang to a 3rd-place finish in Sunday's Bronze final @ 364.307-av/mph, behind leader Stew Dawson's #105 Sea Fury & Howard Pardue's #14 F8F-1 Bearcat.

Here's some archive photos documenting the half-way point of Voodoo's engine change...

Top row (L-R):

"Pinky" - The Race Motor, is out & resting on-deck in its' shipping cradle. 'THA DOC' (Merlin-guru Dr. Dwight Thorn, wearing his Team Strega shirt & signature briefs, looking a bit exhausted) & Steve Bartholf (white tee) help advise Voodoo crew members.

Botton row (L-R):

The ferry motor (painted bright- "Ford Grabber Blue") gets unloaded from Mike 'Sparrow' Barrow's pickup, by Sparrow w/youthful assist from Frontier Crane-Dan Marum's son, as pilot Bob Hannah watches at left. Dr. Thorn & Strega team-mate- Matt Hoffman discuss procedure, while Tony Corbo (behind motor) & an unidentified crewman (far left) listen-in. VOODOO CHILE is shown being pulled out to the ramp in preparation of Bob Hannah's Wed. Qualification run, w/#55 racing numbers applied to the tail.

"Blue Skies" - Doc!

DBD

(Very special thanks to Sparrow for his keen recall to assist w/details & IDs for these photos)

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: Blue skies, Doc!

Bucky, Sparrow... can't thank you guys enough for sharing!

You never cease to amaze me Mr. Dawson!

[BellCobraIV]

Re: Blue skies, Doc!

That would be me...David E. Wells...D.

Toast! To the Artiste! I am an admirer of your works, both your and Bucky's!

Ah, but for a vessel of Good Cab Sav' and evening by the fire behind the shop reminiscing of the days events, and of the memories of those that have had the call to leave our company.

[BuckyD]

Re: Blue skies, Doc!

THX in return, guys - kind kudos always appreciated .

DBD

[wingman]

Re: Blue skies, Doc!

Two Air Racing greats during Reno 1980. Chuck Hall and the Doctor discussing things after a test flight.

I believe this was the year of the first Allison rod Merlin -- The Great White Hope...

[John H]

Re: Blue skies, Doc!

What a great picture Neal!!!!

John

[sledge39]

Re: Blue skies, Doc!

.
......RENO '64......

...Dwight Thorn,...Chuck Lyford,...Bob Love...


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