Experimenter is a magazine created by EAA for people who build airplanes. We will report on amateur-built aircraft as well as ultralights and other light aircraft.
Issue link: http://experimenter.epubxp.com/i/90184
Reno's Racers plenty responsive for pylon racing, and it doesn't wear you out like a twitchier airplane. And it doesn't bleed speed in turns." With two wing tanks plus a header tank, September Fate could be used for longer runs than Reno's spring practice races, "but we haven't done any flying that wasn't testing and preparation for Reno yet," said the pilot. The spar is made of some 60 layers of carbon cloth, and the wing has composite ribs; it's not a foam-core construction, despite its smooth surface. "It's the modern way to build a classic airplane," Reberry said. "It's not terribly difficult to fly, but it's differ- ent. With a deck angle of just 8 degrees, it lands two-point only, and with the low wing, there's a lot of ground effect." Slippery is as slippery does. Even with a sexy shape, details matter. One example is the cowl attachment; using long, compound-curve, internal piano hinges that are inserted and removed through the cockpit. The engine was down on power this year. Although Reberry objected to my characterization of the mill as a "sweepings" engine, he did admit that the engine wasn't the prime concern this year and that all he wanted was reliability; horsepower will come later. Reberry qualified at 231 mph and finished fourth in the Gold in September Fate's first time out. Development Matters September Fate's low gull wing drew crowds all week. In the Sport Class, as much as anywhere, the devel- opment of a fast design matters. While 308 mph was good enough to win when the first Gold Race was held in 1998, qualifying speeds have increased nearly 100 mph since, with purpose-built racers and optimized kit designs upping the ante. Although Lee Behel's wood, single-seat, Chevy V-8–powered, George Periera- designed GP-5, Sweet Dreams, made everyone's mouth water and captured fourth in Gold in its first year of racing, veteran racers Jeff Lavelle and his Glasair III have set the pace for two years, at more than 400 mph. Jeff says it's just constant refinement and smoothing of the airframe, plus reliable twin-turbo horsepower, that makes the airplane fast; he's too modest to mention that he knows how to fly a race plane! Although September Fate's cowl joint looks like a smooth sweep, inserting the pins is a practiced art. 26 NO. 3/NOVEMBER 2012 Second fastest was John Parker's Blue Thunder II, another plane capable of 400 mph but unable to reach that mark this year because of Parker's strategy of holding back on his use of nitrous oxide during qualifying and heat races. His plan of