teams’ off-season improvement programs.
“We have a whole crew, a designer and aero-
dynamic guys, working for us.”
Teams are also obsessed with weight, as
the high-g maneuvers of competition multi-
ply the impact of excess pounds.
“Last year we were very heavy at the
start of the season,” Wade Hammond says
about Bonhomme’s Edge. “We spent a year
taking junk out of the airplane. We put in
shorter oil lines to save weight, repainted
the wings, and took nearly 15 pounds out of
the aircraft.”
Minimum airframe weight rules haven’t
stopped the teams’ reducing efforts.
“If you can get an airplane underweight,
you can put the weight where it flies better,”
notes Dennis Sawyer of Team Goulian. “The
center of gravity is very critical on a race
plane. If you’re underweight 10 or 20
pounds, you can put that weight exactly
where you want it to be.”
Kirby Chambliss, for example, is flying
a new Edge this year, and “everything that
went in it was weighed,” says Jason Resop.
To compensate for its sub-minimum
empty weight, the plane has 25 pounds of
lead in the wheelpants, the ideal spot for
the ballast.
RACING AND REALISM
Everyone wants to be number one, but teams
are realistic about their prospects. Though
all but one fly Edge 540 and MXS-R aircraft,
made by Zivko Aeronautics in Guthrie,
Oklahoma, and MX Aircraft of North
Wilkesboro, North Carolina, respectively,
Jason Resop, team technician of Team Chambliss, carefully
inspects the Edge 540.
some of the planes are older and less aerodynamically refined than others, and some
have underperforming engines. These differences create a speed gap on the course
that can amount to several seconds in a race
measured in hundredths of a second.
“All these airplanes are fast, but they’re
not all capable of winning, because we’ve got
two or three very, very fast, state-of-the-art
airplanes, “ says Dennis Sawyer, referring to
Arch’s and Bonhomme’s Edges and Lamb’s
MXS-R. “We,” he says of Team Goulian, “do
not have a winning airplane, unless a whole
bunch of people make mistakes.”
Several teams say they’ll be happy to
make the podium or finish in the top five.
Others are even more circumspect.
“Winning is not always in our hands, so
the main goal is just doing the best possible,”
says coach Tenneco Larumbe in Spaniard
Alejandro Maclean’s hangar. A sports psy-
chologist, Tenneco helps Alejandro maintain
focus and a positive attitude. “The first half
of the season we had really bad luck you
can’t prevent, for example pieces of the
plane were broken,” Tenneco says. “But
Alejandro is flying consistently, and the goal
is to be improving always.”
“We are not here to win,” declares
Kordas Sandor, TC for Team Besenyei. The
team debuted its Corvus Racer 540, a new
Hungarian design, at Windsor, and views the
remainder of the season as something of a
shakedown cruise. “We’re trying to fly safe
and to get our data on how the plane is
going,” Kordas says. “We will win next year.”
No such reticence from Team Dolderer,
flying an Edge 540 V3, the latest variant, just
picked up from the factory. “We’re here to be
on top of the podium,” says Kelley Brow,
“not to be in second place.”
THE POWER PLAY
Restrictions on powerplant modifications
seem unpopular with crews, but teams
adjust.
“According to the rules, we can’t touch
too much inside the engine, so we actually
get involved with the engine construction,”
Jesus Canadilla says of the Lycon engine in
Alejandro Maclean’s MXS-R. (The other
approved suppliers are Barrett Precision
Engines, Thunderbolt, and Lycoming itself.)
“We can suggest they make some parts
lighter, and balance them. Then, when the
Nigel Lamb steps on the scale for the required post-race
weigh-in.
engine is installed, we make the safest
radical [engine] settings according to the
environment of the place where we are
racing, to make the engine perform as good
as possible.”
To varying degrees, all technicians adjust
engines on a race-by-race basis, changing
the timing, injectors, and fuel servo settings
for the track layout, altitude, ambient tem-
perature, and other factors. But achieving
optimum performance can only be a tempo-
rary goal.
“A race plane is never finished. So when
you finish, you start again,” observes Martin
Barth. “At the last race, details [on the plane]
were not done,” he says of Team Ivanoff’s
Edge. “This week, in New York, now it’s fin-
ished. The airplane runs very well. So it
starts again. Now we can do more detail.”
As they did yesterday, the racers make
two flights, but today’s times count: They
establish starting order for tomorrow’s race
(slowest first), and the fastest qualifier gets
one point. Today that’s Hannes Arch.
