Second is First in Silver

We dropped in on the Sawbones race team at the Reno National Air Races this Thursday in time for the first heats. All the qualification time trials occurred on Tuesday and Wednesday, so the classes had been set. Sawbones was placed in the Silver heat of the "Unlimited Class" based on comparative speed in those trials. There are three classes in air racing - the Bronze, Silver, and Gold. If a plane wins one of the heat races in one class, they move up into the next class in subsequent heats. That's just what Sawbones did today.

What makes that somewhat unusual is that Sawbones was not expected to win, this heat. The "Unlimited" category, which is comprised only of classic WWII warplanes - other categories include Jets, Formula 1, Biplanes, Sport planes, etc. - has two distinct groups of contestants. Sawbones belongs to the group of relatively stock airplanes fly at speeds that might be expected of these planes when they rolled off the assembly line. The other group are heavily modified versions that can fly as much as 80 knots faster. Strega, a heavily modified P-51, is one of those planes, having won the Championship seven times in the past. Because it qualified using a much lower powered  "ferry" engine (the engine used to fly it to the race, replaced with the race engine on site), and placed in the first Silver heat with Sawbones. Clearly, they were expected to win this heat.

Strega pulled out in front of Sawbones within the first lap. However, instead of increasing the gap between Strega and Sawbones, the Strega pilot and owner choose to preserve the engine and pulled back power to just maintain distance. Those heavily modified engines only last about 20 hours before they need to be entirely overhauled, and at race speeds their 3500 + horses are continuously trying to pull themselves apart. In time trials, 232 (that's the name), another of the modified's, had a piston blow, with the rod tearing through the rest of the engine and forcing a deadstick landing, pulling them out of the races. Strega wanted to reduce the chances of that happening by running at a lower, cooler RPM and manifold pressure.

In lap 5 of 6, Strega violated a race rule by cutting in on one of the race pylons, forcing a 12 second penalty. At that point they were only 5 seconds ahead of Sawbones. Since Sawbones was securely in second place with no chance to catch Strega, race pilot and former Space Shuttle astronaut Curt Brown had pulled back on the power slightly to limit risk to this own engine. However, when he thought he saw Strega cut the pylon, he pushed the plane to maximum power again to try to keep up with Strega and maintain less than the 12 second penalty differential. Strega also noticed the mistake and powered up to try to gain further ground, but was only able to recover another 4 seconds, increasing the difference between first and second place to 9 seconds. Sawbones won the race by 3 seconds, even though 30 knots slower at some points in the race.

Before the race, aerospace materials engineer Jerry Fleishacker had applied 3M drag reduction tape to all of the seams found within the fuselage and wing surfaces that might produce drag during flight. As a sponsor of the team, we're trying to see if it might enhance speeds even two or three knots. This race demonstrated the value of each and every knot of speed. It's hard to say if it made a difference, but during the race the tailwheel lock released, putting the tailwheel and tailwheel gear doors in the slipstream, causing it's own drag. Yet Sawbones did not appear to lose any time during the race? Because of the tape? Who knows. Hopefully we'll find out in the next heat, in which Sawbones will be racing at the Gold level against nothing but faster, heavily modified competitors.