The reunion dinner for 12 astronauts at the Silver Legacy Casino personified the problem facing the National Championship Air Races Association, which brought them together.
Aging gracefully is still aging.
The dozen silver eagles of the 1963-72 U.S. space program, including Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, William Anders, Eugene Cernan and Rusty Schweickart, gazed over the 1,000-strong crowd at an equally silver-haired group of fans who had paid $125 a head to be there.
And the biggest draw at the 39th National Air Races last weekend at Reno-Stead Airport 11 miles north of the city, remains the Unlimited Class of 30 piston-engine racers. Most of these are World War II-vintage fighters such as the North American P-51 Mustang, Grumman F8F Bearcat, Korean War Hawker Sea Fury and a few Soviet and Chinese retro-tech Yaklovevs.
It’s the ultimate racing experience for a propeller plane buff.
The planes sport outrageous names such as Dago Red, Voodoo, Rare Bear, Riff Raff, Czech Mate, Cloud Dancer and Russian Roulette. They have wild paint schemes and profound modifications to wings and fuselage to reduce wind resistance and their engines generate up to 5,000 horsepower, about twice what engine manufacturerrs Rolls-Royce or Pratt and Whitney intended. They race on an 8.2-mile course, dodging 100-foot pylons that mark course at almost 500 m.p.h.
But many planes are 60 years old and some have been racing for half that time. Some of the pilots are retirees from the armed services or commercial airlines, and many could carry AARP sponsor stickers.
The crowd was estimated at more than 200,000 for the 2002 races, topping the 186,000 who came in 2000, but race association President and Chief Executive Mike Houghton says the writing is on the wall.
“We’ve got to attract younger fans,” he says. “We’ve been talking about adding a new dimension; the WW II fans are aging like the planes.”
This year the association made its move, adding a contemporary jet class, using former Soviet trainers to complement the other classes. These include the smaller Formula One, Sport and Biplanes and the T-6 class for the huge radial-engined WW II trainers.
The jet idea arose in 2000, when a number were sitting around at the end of Sunday’s racing. These included racer Jimmy Leeward’s MiG-17, a MiG-15, the two Stolichnaya Vodka MiG 17s and an L39 Albatross. Unlimited Gold winner Dago Red wanted to go for a course record and part of the crowd stayed to watch.
“We put on a jet race after that, and the crowd went wild,” said Houghton.
But to add this to the schedule, Houghton had to find jets that could race each other evenly and were (relatively) cheap to buy and repair. Then he had to find jet pilots.
“Old jets are all mismatched [in performance characteristics], and it was a challenge,” he said with a sigh.
The solution proved to be the Aero Vodochody L-39 Albatross, the standard Soviet and Warsaw pact jet trainer from 1972. It was capable of 450 m.p.h. and planes and parts were available, sold off after the collapse of the Soviet Union. At about $300,000 they were a bargain compared to the $500,000 for an Unlimited Hawker Sea Fury or $1 million for a P-51 Mustang.
The next issue was audience interest, and Houghton elected an approach similar to the stock car International Race of Champions, or IROC, series. Popular pilots who are jet-qualified would race seven planes borrowed from their owners.
The paint schemes are distinctive so fans can tell who’s who from a distance, much like NASCAR, and the planes are evenly matched. But how would owners feel having other people race their $300,000 toys?
“It’s like owning a race horse. Racing’s exciting; we love it,” said Diane Kottke of Minden, Nev., owner of two L-39s with her husband, Dennis.
The Kottke’s pilot is Mary Dilda, one of only two women among the 132 racers in the 2002 event. She also races a North American T-6 racer, Two of Hearts, and her husband, Steve, has another, Felix. Dilda flies a DC-10 jumbo jet for FedEx as a day job, but she was excited.
“She checked us out, and we checked her out,” said Kottke. “We liked each other.”
Dilda placed Kottke’s jet Heartless second behind Curt Brown’s American Spirit and was fourth in the Gold Race in her T-6 after a race-long battle with Gene McNeeley. “It was quite a weekend,” she said.
She was delighted how well the L-39 performed and was only 200 feet behind Brown at the finish after six laps of the 8.27-mile course.
“It’s a perfect plane to fly close formation, and it’s in great condition. The top three planes in the class are very even, and the other four run together, too. I just wish it made more noise,” she said wistfully.
Modifications may be next.
Gary Dyer owns the unnamed No. 15 L-39 flown by former astronaut R. “Hoot” Gibson. Dyer flew “heavies” for United Airlines for 37 years, winding up flying Boeing 747-400s, and doesn’t worry about racing stressing his L-39.
“It’s just a steady four G’s but I hate to have Hoot go so slow.” Dyer’s thinking about stripping his next L-39 to save weight.
Robert Jones, a Fresno, Calif., farmer, lost his right arm at the shoulder in an accident at age 3 but it hasn’t slowed him down.
“I won the first heat I ever entered,” he said, laughing. “With the biplane, I can grip the stick between my legs anyway.”
Will Matthews of Greenfield, Ind., brought his engineering background to Moonshine, his Sport Class plane, and won the Silver Final.
He fitted a supercharger powered by a separate snowmobile engine in the back seat to win at 267 m.p.h.
“It’s a lot more power,” said Matthews’ electrician Jim Ratje. “The Continental engine puts out 200 horsepower when it’s normally aspirated, and we’re getting 280.”
Age hasn’t slowed down Daryl Greenamyer. He retired in 1977 after winning the Unlimited Gold Final in his much-modified P-51 Red Baron at 430 m.p.h. It was his seventh Unlimited title. Last year he built a Lancair Legacy for the Sport Class and came back to win the Sport Gold Final at age 66.
Tom Campau won the T-6 class, piloting his WW II trainer Mystical Power to 231 m.p.h. At the same time, fliers stuck to garbage cans around the pits advertised the plane for sale for $118,000 “or best offer.”
However fast a true racer goes, it’s not fast enough.
The atmosphere at the races is as festive as a really good state fair–with planes. Crowds mingle along the midway, eating food such as polish sausage and browse the booths selling model planes, patches, pins, books, and airplane T-shirts for every model or more general themes.
There’s always a number of warbirds old and new on display and in flying demonstrations, along with aerobatics hot shots such as Greg Poe defying gravity.
The warbirds this year included everything from a very rare British 1944 Fairey Firefly, which won best of show at the Experimental Aircraft Association Fly-in in Oshkosh, Wis., to a 1960 Hawker Hunter fighter, two F-104 Starfighters, which put on a noisy show, and F-5, F-14, F-16 and F/A-18 fighters.
After three days of close racing, the weekend concluded in a dust storm with an anti-climactic Gold Unlimited race. Skip Holm’s P-51 Dago Red took honors at 462 m.p.h., followed by Michael Brown’s Hawker Sea Fury September Fury and Matt Jackson’s P-51 Voodoo.
But the long-awaited battle between Skip Holm and Tiger Destefani’s P-51 Strega didn’t materialize.
Destefani blew out his best motor earlier in the week and then burned a piston on a borrowed Rolls-Royce Merlin in the first lap and pulled up.
Perhaps the closest call happened to the National Championship Air Race Association. Last year it faced ruin when 9/11 forced the cancellation of the event because all but military aircraft were grounded.
“It was a major cash-flow problem,” said Houghton. “We need $2 million upfront and if we don’t have anything coming in, we’re in big trouble.”
The association had been putting money aside for such a rainy day, and some sponsors and entrants told the association to keep the money.
