Getting Ready For Reno???

Wulfenite · 04-26-2004, 22:51

***Texas T*** · 04-27-2004, 05:50

Great pictures. Did you take them yourself?

Wulfenite · 04-27-2004, 13:35

Ha!

I think you need press credintials to get that close to the pylons.

Bullman · 04-28-2004, 21:35

I recognize the Tigercat in Picture 2 and the Mustang of course, but the top picture and the red plane are giving me some difficulty. The ones up top look like Hawker Sea Furies maybe? The red one I have no clue. Could you give me some help?

It would be way too cool to go to that!!

Wulfenite · 04-28-2004, 22:27

The top two are Bearcats, The lower red one, Critical Mass, is a Hawker Sea Fury. All the unlimited racers are heavily modified through. Last years winner, Dago Red, is a P-51.

These planes go so much faster than their original designs were intended to do and they are so much lighter, since they dont have guns ammo, bombs, and fuel to get back and forth to germany, that they dont need near as much wing as they used to. So the take a couple feet off each wing, rework the body shape and canopy to streamline, and of course the stuff a whole bunch more into the engine.

You ought to make plans to go. Its a four day event, thursday to sun, but the best 1 day to go is the friday. Its the same show (Thunder Birds, wing walkers, acrobatics, etc.) and all of the racers race too. Sometimes they hold back a little on thursday and friday to sandbag for the finals on Sunay but its still fun even though its not the "finals" on friday. Reno is kind of a neet format since they have airshow stuff going on during the lulls while they recover one set of racers and get the next class staged to go. Makes fore relatively non stop entertainment. Kind tough to decide when to run to the john.

BillCola · 04-28-2004, 23:26

Quote:

Originally posted by Wulfenite
Ha!

I think you need press credintials to get that close to the pylons.

Back in the mid '80's, my buddies and I four-wheeled wayyyy around the back of the course, and parked practically under one of the remote pylons. I swear you could feel the exhaust heat. It was unbelievable. They've since sealed it up tighter than a drum...

Bullman · 04-29-2004, 00:02

I never would have guessed those were bearcats, big change there. I guess they do sort of look it in the landing gear area, but there have been some serious mods done to those two planes.

Wulfenite · 04-29-2004, 08:48

You need to go to Reno to hear the most serrious mod that is under the cowling. Those planes are supped up till they positively humm as they round the #1 pylon.

knuckle dragger · 04-29-2004, 09:34

I go every year..it is awesome!

skyboss_4evr · 05-04-2004, 23:35

I'm an FAA air traffic controller and I recently had the pleasure of controlling a flight of 2 P-51's

Too cool for school!!

Bullman · 05-05-2004, 00:08

When are the Reno air races? This might be something I need to plan some vacation time for.

Wulfenite · 05-05-2004, 08:12

Here's the web site. http://www.airrace.org/indexJS.php

This year it September 16 through 19. Th. to Sun.

The race portion of the event builds through heats till the finals are on friday. So if you really want to see who wins you have to be there on sunday. If you're just interested in seeing some racing you can go any day.

The air-show portion happenes at least in part everyday, but some of the major acts (Thunderbirds for instance) will skip thursday. The web site says the air-show schedule wont be finalized till August. We're planning on going friday.