ABOVE & BEYOND: HARD-CHARGING UNLIMITEDS

Air Classics, Dec 2004 by O'Leary, Michael, Larsen, Jim, Larsen, James W Jr

Over the past few years, we have all grown overly complacent to the good weather that graced the Reno National Air Races. Except for a few blasting wind storms that would sweep the ramp and blur the sky with desert dust, the weather for the big event on Sunday has been pretty exceptional. Well, we all forget that Reno is about a mile high and September is the cusp of changing seasons.

Reno 2004 had been a fairly mellow event with no major incidents, but on Sunday that would all change with high winds and snow in the hills and on the far reaches of the race course. All the clothing vendors rapidly sold out of sweatshirts, fleece pullovers and other warm gear. However, Reno race fans are nothing if not a hardy hunch.

With the weather rapidly going to hell, Steve Hinton called a meeting of Gold pilots to get an opinion if they should race or stay on the ground. Well, the race pilots are also a fairly hardy hunch and the consensus was "Go!"

All during the week, the fans had been watching Rare Bear and Dago Red. Having come in a close one, two during qualifying (see sidebar), Rare Bear began having a series of problems. It's not that Dago Red was trouble-free but most of its problems had been experienced (and rectified) before arriving at Reno. Now that the Bear is a permanent resident of Reno, lots of work goes into the machine as race time nears and one of the most interesting changes was the replacement of its near-trademark three-blade prop with a four-blade Skyraider unit. Nothing in Unlimited racing is easy so let's take a brief look at what the Bear, LyIe, John, and the crew had been going through.

Each year, Reno holds a Pylon School for new race pilots and pilots that have been away from the pylons for a few years. Shortly after the school was over, John Penney and the crew got Rare Bear ready for what should have been a routine test flight.

John had the Bear up about 40-mi north of Stead when the needle on the oil pressure gauge began to drastically fall. For a big, round engine that uses oil as life blood, this was not a good thing. John, professional aviator that he is, rapidly scanned the surrounding territory for a likely landing strip. He brought the Bear in for a landing at a US Army strip by the name of Amadee. John was pleased to have the racer on the ground in one piece, the Army was less than pleased to have an uninvited visitor.

While the Army put the plane under armed guard, John and crew were given 24 hours to remove the racer. The crew returned with what they hoped was all the equipment needed to get the Bear out of the Army's clutches. Examination showed that a weld in an oil line had parted which made for a fairly easy repair. John ran the engine up and everything seemed okay so he made a direct flight to Stead. Once back home, there still was a great deal of concern on what the missing oil may have done to the engine. Filled up with oil, a check of the engine was undertaken and it seemed that all cylinders were holding their required compression. It was then decided to do an engine run at reduced power and this revealed that the main seal in the nose case had developed an oil leak. Not good since this would require a major repair.

Bear crew chief Elliott White called Abbott Aircraft in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, to get some advice. The company had done a good job rebuilding some of the Bear's cylinders and Abbott agreed to send their nose case expert to Reno to oversee the repairs. This was done but with all the time that had been expended, the crew did not have time to do the propeller testing they wanted and the decision was made - good or bad - to go with the four-blade unit.

John Penney arrived back at Stead on 7 September to do another test flight but while everything was being ehecked out the spray bar water pump failed. Fortunately, there was a replacement so the crew went to work. John was back on the 11th and made two test flights - everything seemed to he working as advertised.

Then it was time for qualifying - this is a tense time for all pilots and crews but it was especially tense for the Bear group since so many things had been going wrong. Chief rival was Skip Holm in Dago Red and the modified P-51D seemed to be really performing well. Or course, there was Mike Brown waiting in the wings with the Super Sea Fury, just watching for one mistake or mechanical problem that could put him out in front.

John waited until the course was relatively free of traffic. Only Skip Holm was up and he seemed to be content just cruising around, putting some time on the modified Merlin. John called for the clock and pushed the power up - he qualified at a blistering 490.033! Skip was watching all this and then called for the clock when John completed his run. Dago qualified at 490.821 - talk about competition!

The Bear went back into the hangar and the crew tore into its innards as was standard. What then happened wasn't standard - they found metal in the engine screens. A sample of the oil and metal was rushed to a lab in Reno that determined the metal was aluminum which made a failed cylinder or cylinder ring the probable culprit. The crew then worked overtime for two solid days to inspect each and every cylinder. By Wednesday it appeared that the cylinders were okay, so where did the metal come from?