Reno 2021

knot4u

Repeat Offender
Reno Air Races 2021
We may lose an aviation institution, the Reno Air Races, because of this @$#!#&@# pandemic. I'm biased admittedly, I worked as a mechanic on the Rare Bear for almost a decade. If you have a trip to the races on your bucket list you might want to donate, otherwise it may cease to exist.
Reno Air Racing Association Faces Uncertain Future
 
Maybe RARA can hit up Trump for spare change

After all, he's all about Making America Great Again......

AND this qualifies
 
Reno hangs on by a thread every year. I have lots of opinions and issues on RARA and the air races in general. Their utter lack of willingness to pivot and modernize will ultimately be their failure.
 
Frankly, I’m surprised Reno continued after the crash. I thought for sure they would be uninsurable or cost prohibitive for insurance, after that accident.

Their insurance went up considerably.

Honestly, insurance in general has been a hard hit to the races. Several unlimited racers pulled their aircraft due to being cost-prohibitive to insure. My generous friend asked me to race his Pitts in the biplane class for 2021 which I would love to do, but with premiums rising and racers in all classes dwindling, I am not sure how much longer this even makes sense.
 
Frankly, I’m surprised Reno continued after the crash. I thought for sure they would be uninsurable or cost prohibitive for insurance, after that accident.
I'm surprised it was still a thing BEFORE the crash. Don't get me wrong, they are cool as hell, just so dang niche.
 
Insurance of all kinds has gotten brutal. Mine went up 25% this year for no reason. “Just because” is what the broker told me.”

The real reason is some very high profile losses last year in the “owner flown turbine” category, but we don’t talk about that.
 
Okay, perhaps a popular post. Or perhaps an unpopular post.

I like all kinds of aviation, and all kinds of sport aviation. I love the sound of large V-12's and radials at full bore. I love it.

That said, to me, Reno and the unlimiteds are NOT my aviation or air racing dream. To me, "Air racing" harkens back to the late 20's and 30's before the war. When the Army could show up with whatever airplane they had, and three Bozo's named Lloyd, Clyde, and Walter could show up from something they threw together in a hanger in Wichita and LAP the fastest thing the military had. And Wedell-Williams, Brothers Granville, Benny Howard, Matty Laird, and others. To me that was the innovation - look at the speeds of the Bendix and Thompson Trophy Winners from 1928-1939. And the innovation wasn't military or government funded. It was American ingenuity and know-how. There is something uniquely "American" in that kind of air racing to me. Something kind of cultural. With that in mind, Reno - running a bunch of military machines that have been modified in various ways - didn't scratch the same itch. Just different. MY overall aviation fantasy would be to show up with an absolutely homebuilt Unlimited. Something designed, built and it's not just a chopped up government machine. I would make an exception for the motor because in the 20's and 30's the motors were common between the civilian racers and the military. To race a private airplane against a bunch of chopped up military hardware and beat them would be the dream for me. Sort of like what Travel Air did with the Mystery Ship.

The Sport Class was beginning to look interesting to me, and particularly when the Thunder Mustang raced in it and the unlimited class that one year. The I thought that if you could keep going with the sport class it would ultimately start to maybe rival the unlimiteds. Anyway, even if RARA goes tits up, something will take its place. It won't be the same or maybe as big, but at some point people will gather to race airplanes around a closed course. Because they pretty much always have. As much of a spectacle as Reno is/was, it was nothing when compared to the Cleveland Air Races which were a massive event of a week or so with crowds that dwarfed the Indy 500. But flying was a newer, bigger deal then. Anyway, just some thoughts.
 
Okay, perhaps a popular post. Or perhaps an unpopular post.

I like all kinds of aviation, and all kinds of sport aviation. I love the sound of large V-12's and radials at full bore. I love it.

That said, to me, Reno and the unlimiteds are NOT my aviation or air racing dream. To me, "Air racing" harkens back to the late 20's and 30's before the war. When the Army could show up with whatever airplane they had, and three Bozo's named Lloyd, Clyde, and Walter could show up from something they threw together in a hanger in Wichita and LAP the fastest thing the military had. And Wedell-Williams, Brothers Granville, Benny Howard, Matty Laird, and others. To me that was the innovation - look at the speeds of the Bendix and Thompson Trophy Winners from 1928-1939. And the innovation wasn't military or government funded. It was American ingenuity and know-how. There is something uniquely "American" in that kind of air racing to me. Something kind of cultural. With that in mind, Reno - running a bunch of military machines that have been modified in various ways - didn't scratch the same itch. Just different. MY overall aviation fantasy would be to show up with an absolutely homebuilt Unlimited. Something designed, built and it's not just a chopped up government machine. I would make an exception for the motor because in the 20's and 30's the motors were common between the civilian racers and the military. To race a private airplane against a bunch of chopped up military hardware and beat them would be the dream for me. Sort of like what Travel Air did with the Mystery Ship.

The Sport Class was beginning to look interesting to me, and particularly when the Thunder Mustang raced in it and the unlimited class that one year. The I thought that if you could keep going with the sport class it would ultimately start to maybe rival the unlimiteds. Anyway, even if RARA goes tits up, something will take its place. It won't be the same or maybe as big, but at some point people will gather to race airplanes around a closed course. Because they pretty much always have. As much of a spectacle as Reno is/was, it was nothing when compared to the Cleveland Air Races which were a massive event of a week or so with crowds that dwarfed the Indy 500. But flying was a newer, bigger deal then. Anyway, just some thoughts.
It sounds like you would've been a fan of Tsunami, a Merlin powered homebuilt. It was fast enough to finish in the top three in the unlimited gold 1991, a race that at the time held the record for the fastest race ever run at Reno. Like a lot of the really fast airplanes it was under constant development and it was getting faster every year as they worked out all of the bugs. Unfortunately one of those bugs killed the owner, John Sandberg, and destroyed the airplane in a crash on the way home from the races that year. A group of people including some of Johns family have the wreckage and they are rebuilding it using as many pieces of the original plane as possible and trying to decipher the original design drawings.
You can find more info here if you're interested https://m.facebook.com/thetsunamiproject?__nodl&ref=external:duckduckgo.com&_rdr
 
Insurance of all kinds has gotten brutal. Mine went up 25% this year for no reason. “Just because” is what the broker told me.”

The real reason is some very high profile losses last year in the “owner flown turbine” category, but we don’t talk about that.
Hmmmm, same
I thought that was due to my trailing 12 mo make and model hrs dropping, but I guess not
 
I checked off a bucket list item when I attended the races in 2009. I had a great time. I met some interesting folks and some amazing pilots. I was fascinated by the aircraft, the intersection of modern and WWII-era engineering.

The racing? Not so much. I can't say it was any better than any major airshow I've attended over the decades. Like many sports, visually, it's better on TV.

I enjoyed the Red Bull race I attended much more...and Red Bull couldn't make that work financially.
 
A friend is working on this but it's a few years out still.

Sport class is where it's at, watching homebuilts doing 400mph when the airplanes were designed for 260 is much more appealing than the big money warbirds
I disagree. The difference between 500 and 400 mph is huge. When the fast unlimited gold racers are all actually running hard and you're there in person, you don't watch it, you experience it. Maybe it is over, if so it's just another casualty of 2020. I hope anyone here who wanted to go was able to.
 
Waco said:
And the innovation wasn't military or government funded. It was American ingenuity and know-how. There is something uniquely "American" in that kind of air racing to me.

I haven't read Flying Magazine for at least a decade and a half (unless it was sitting on the AME's table in the waiting room), but I always thought Peter Garrison's Melmoth encapsulated everything that I love about homebuilts. A Harvard-educated (but, like, an ENGLISH Harvard degree) dilettante designing, building, and flying a fairly revolutionary (or, ok, at least very impressive) aircraft from his garage to, you know, Europe. That's the kind of thing that gives me the fizz.

Don't get me wrong. Like you, I LOVE big radials and absurd speeds at low altitudes, but for me at least, the true Murica is some guy saying "hey, who says *I* can't do better?" And then doing it.

His "Aftermath" columns were also great. 110% maudlin-sentiment free, and also refreshingly technical. There was a book made of various "Aftermath" columns in, I dunno, the late 80s/early 90s? And while the little Boris-Nerd who was dog-earred the entire book, I read his, in particular, so much that the pages just about fell out.
 
I disagree. The difference between 500 and 400 mph is huge. When the fast unlimited gold racers are all actually running hard and you're there in person, you don't watch it, you experience it. Maybe it is over, if so it's just another casualty of 2020. I hope anyone here who wanted to go was able to.
dunno, the leader in sport class is hitting 430mph in a plastic airplane he's modded himself with some friends and not some multi million dollar warbird. I think that is infinitely cooler, given the airframe limitations associated with the class
There's something else coming for the unlimiteds though. I am moving to spend the next couple years helping my friend build it, excited to see what we can get it to do.
 
dunno, the leader in sport class is hitting 430mph in a plastic airplane he's modded himself with some friends and not some multi million dollar warbird. I think that is infinitely cooler, given the airframe limitations associated with the class
There's something else coming for the unlimiteds though. I am moving to spend the next couple years helping my friend build it, excited to see what we can get it to do.
If the races cease there's no valid reason to build a racer is there? I think advancing technology is wonderful but that isn't what Reno is about. It's about the competition when the stakes are so unbelievably high. If you build a fast unlimited and there are no other unlimiteds to play with all you've built is a really fast single seat airplane with limited range, probably poor visibility and not necessarily benign handling qualities. I'm sure your friend is convinced he's solved these problems, but there has been a lot of people like him and the proof is in the pudding regarding aircraft design. It's very, very hard to go that fast, for that long, under those conditions.
 
If the races cease there's no valid reason to build a racer is there? I think advancing technology is wonderful but that isn't what Reno is about. It's about the competition when the stakes are so unbelievably high. If you build a fast unlimited and there are no other unlimiteds to play with all you've built is a really fast single seat airplane with limited range, probably poor visibility and not necessarily benign handling qualities. I'm sure your friend is convinced he's solved these problems, but there has been a lot of people like him and the proof is in the pudding regarding aircraft design. It's very, very hard to go that fast, for that long, under those conditions.
Like its been said, if they go under there will be some place for the races to happen again. Plus there's always FAI records to set.

You'll have to wait and see what he's got, once we're allowed to put up photos I'll post some. The airframe design is not a factor.
 
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