WIX Archives
Re: Along the same topic
Posted by bdk on Thu Feb 05, 2004 11:32:19 AM
In reply top Re: Along the same topic posted by Steve T on Wed Feb 04, 2004 11:15:49 PM
: : Grrenameyer was building a racer with Sea Fury wings and
: a
: : n F-86 tail.
:
: I think "yikes" about covers it...Can certainly think of
: better things to do with a Sea Fury mainplane set than th
: at! Did that project get anywhere?
Scott posted a link to "Wildfire." I have copied it below in case you haven't seen it yet.
Most of these projects take a while since they are privately (under-)funded. I haven't heard much about it lately, but Greenameyer definately knows air racing and also knows what will fly and what won't. I recall that Bruce Boland (who designed Tsunami) helped design it and Ray Poe (another Lockheed and Tsunami veteran) was involved in the constuction (until they passed away). Tsunami took many years to get off the ground too, but it was 100% scratchbuilt. I think that using some existing components will probably save them a lot of time. The Pond Racer went a lot more smoothly because there was plenty of funding available to see it through in one shot.
: I do remember the Wildfire project...big squared-off thi
: ngy based around a T-6 centre fuselage, bell-shaped cowl l
: ike a 30s Northrop or the Hughes H1. IIRC it never flew. I
: s this project being resurrected??
Apparently so. It seems that much of the questionable construction has been redone. The aircraft did fly once in the old configuration, but was uncontrollable and nearly crashed. Skip Holm nosed it over during another test. I understand that there were some ownership disputes after that, so it sat in storage for many years. I remember peering through cracks in the hangar door when it was initially under construction at Van Nuys Airport. It had a really funky tuned exhaust at the time and indeed looked "wild."
