Words & Pictures © 2003 Frauke Feser & Jan Peters airrace.de FLY LOW, FLY FAST, TURN LEFT ! Once a year in September the fastest races are divided in a way that almost grandstands. There you will find about motor sport event takes place in every plane is in the air once per day. everything: Next to food and drinks there Nevada, the National Championship Air Therefore the 6 to 8 planes, which fit each are books, souvenirs and aviation Races and Airshow. other best in performance, fly in the same accessories. If you are looking for buying a race. Highlights are the final runs in each Russian MIG-fighter, you might also find it. It started in 1998, when we had the nice class, the actual gold-, silver- and bronze idea to go once to the Reno Air Races. At races. Huge grandstands offer great views for the that time we underestimated the potential spectators. For some extra money danger of addiction a bit. By now, we have everyone who arrives not too late can buy a been there the sixth time in a row. pit pass. This is the area where the airplanes are maintained, polished, and, if Scene of action is the Stead airport, a necessary, also repaired. Here you will get former airforce base north of Reno, very close to the airplanes and from time to Nevada, the biggest little town in the world. time one can talk to the pilots or crew The airport is located at an elevation of Tom Dwelle in his Critical Mass members. Here are the most different about 5000 ft in the desert. The sometimes individuals: mechanic-freaks, high-tech- (at daytime) very high temperatures often engineers, multi-millionaires, and make for density altitudes of 8.000 ft. Also Every day the program starts at 8 o’clock astronauts, pilots who fly extremely well wind speeds can be quite interesting there. with the small and light weighted formula- and of course fans from all over the world. one racers, to prevent them from being From Monday to Wednesday the qualifying affected by the strong thermals which build Some attention should be paid to the static takes place. Every participant tries to fly a up over the desert during the day. The last display, where numerous airplanes of all lap as fast as possible. Mostly several race of the day at about half past four is kinds are presented. Also the participants airplanes are on the race course at the reserved for the giants of the unlimited of the National Aviation Heritage same time. The achieved speed class. In between the races of the 5 Invitational, better known as the Rolls- determines the starting position for the first different race classes there are Royce Heritage Trophy, a beauty-contest race. The participants get distributed in A-, miscellaneous air show acts, like for true to original treasures of aviation B-, and C-heat races in every race class. aerobatics, flying displays of very rare history, are on display here. This is equivalent to gold-, silver-, and vintage planes and military demonstrations, bronze-class. Whoever wins a race in his like e.g. the Thunderbirds. The program is Lots of interesting things are happening class steps up to the next fastest group of without respite, that’s why it is quite hard to every day and it is advisable, not only to competition. The actual races take place break away from the action in order to shop stay for the weekend, but to arrive earlier. Thursday through Sunday. The single at the diverse booths behind the Top: Mike Brown in his highly modified Hawker Sea Fury September Fury Right: Rare Bear at a run-up on the apron in the evening Qualifying – The action starts Mike Brown with September Fury was the action after touchdown. Therefore the The Bear is back! first of the top favorites to present a landing roll took disturbingly long – it ended qualifying speed. His speed was a real in the dirt overrun. After some necessary repairs on the engine challenge for his competitors. His (former) of Rare Bear during the night of Monday to Hawker Sea Fury is one of the most Despite multiple effective application of Tuesday the day of the Bear was to come. modified airplanes of the unlimiteds class. Murphy’s Law the first Mayday of the week During the afternoon session John Penny After having flown for a few rounds, Mike fortunately ended with a successful achieved the unlimiteds pole position with Brown applied via radio for taking his time. emergency landing. It was helpful that the approximately 797 km/h. The audience was Everything looked and sounded perfect – at prop blades of this plane can be feathered thrilled! least till he passed the 6th of the 8 pylons even after total loss of engine oil. At most of the race track. There, at about 800 km/h other unlimiteds the prop blades turn to low Rare Bear´s comeback after some years of his tuned Wright R-3350 of estimated 4200 pitch without oil pressure, so that the prop absence was mainly made possible by a horse powers blew. Smoke and oil got into acts as a giant air brake. This barred quite fan-sponsoring program. Many people had the cockpit, so that the visibility of the pilot a few pilots from reaching the runway in an donated in order to see this racing legend was affected. Before long Randy Bailey emergency before. back in the air again. The team members approached with the second racer of the had put huge amounts of uncompensated team, September Pops. He flew a tight Instead of setting up a new record and to working hours into the restoration. formation with Mike, to help him to land be the first to qualify with more than 500 That this paid off so well seemed to be safely. mph, the first qualifying session on Monday more than fair even to the competitors. marked the repository for one of the hottest When September Fury´s speed went below aspirants for the victory. Of course there were also some teams that 200 mph, Mike opened his canopy to get had less success this Tuesday. The most rid of the smoke in the cockpit. To get a Other teams were more successful. spectacular Mayday of the day was called better visibility, he wanted to push the seat Sherman Smoot celebrated a terrific by Bud Granley, who regularly flies Lickety into a higher position. But he had bad luck comeback with a lap of 700 km/h for the Split in the T6-class. and the seat went into the lowest possible Czech Mate-team, which was regularly He had the opportunity to take the position. Visibility was gone and Mike had afflicted by defects for the last few years. place of Gary Hubler as pilot this day to fly by instruments for a short time and in and to fly the modified Sea Fury Furias the same time he had to push the seat The fastest lap of the day was flown by with its giant Pratt & Whitney R-4360- higher. The remaining pressure in the Skip Holm in Dago Red at a speed of 793 engine with more than 71 liters hydraulics after the engine failure was high km/h. His extremely tuned P-51D Mustang cylinder capacity. The nick name enough to pull the landing gear, but it was has been the unlimiteds champion for the ‘corncob’ is based on the fact that this too low to build up the normal braking last 4 years. radial engine has as many as 28 cylinders in 4 rows. Unfortunately after a few nice laps a A Wildcat on the race course participation in the races. damage on the carburetor throttle controls occurred so that the engine ran on with the Some teams used the last day of the Both participating Yak-9, Joe Tobul Special high amount of 40 inches of manifold qualifying to improve their qualifying time of Sean Carrol and Anya of Jim Cook had pressure. and with it their starting position for the their Maydays today. First a broken gasket race. on the joint between the prop and the Rolls- After a few quite spectacular maneuvers Other teams tried to sort out problems, Royce-Allison-Motor was the cause. The Furias was slow enough so that the pilot which occur from time to time on these high other time a coolant pipeline failed. could deploy the gear and flaps. In the performance air planes, like e.g. problems short final he stopped the engine and made with radiators or flaps which wouldn’t close a clean glider’s landing. The repair of the completely. airplane was no problem, so that it was Among others the team of Miss America ready for operation once more very soon. had to deal with this problem. After the spectacular total loss last year Brent Mike Brown brought his newest toy to Reno Hisey’s team made it to rebuild this most for the first time this year, the beautiful famous of all race planes to race-state in 9 Grumman F7F Tigercat Big Bossman . months. Only the paint job of the P-51D Dave Morss in Jim Cook´s Yak-9 Anya Unfortunately there were not many Mustang was not finished. But the race occasions where it could be seen on the engine build by Rick Shanholtzer ran Whoever wonders why Anya has got the race track. After it suffered a slight damage perfectly. race number 42 should read Douglas on the left engine this rare warbird stayed Adams’ book “Hitchhiking through galaxy”.