Warbird Information Exchange

was there anything left of the pond racer that was salvageable and is anyone working on it if there is?seemed like way too cool of a concept to just give up on!!

Nothing left but burned composites. It would be fully impossible to have done anything with it. I believe all molds were destroyed as well.

Don't forget the two heat treated NISSAN GT race car engines.

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

Those boat anchors got heat treated on just about every flight.

Last I heard the remains were in Chino, but that was a long time ago.

keep thinking it would have been one hell of a plane with turbo props!

Even on its best day I don't think it turned more than about a 400 MPH lap at Reno.

My personal opinion on the matter is that the design itself was flawed from the start and even if you mounted a pair of Griffons up front it would have not been successful. WAAAAAAY too much intersection drag with the twin booms and the tail fins and stuff going this way and that way. I think everyone agreed that the concept of a composite racer powered by automotive engines was sound...but "Rutan" does not scream "racer". Rutan designs, for all the cool out-of-the-box thinking don't constitute a good translation for a race course. If a twin boom racer was a successful idea, the P-38 would be a winner too. Drag is drag...and there was a lot of it in that design. This is not in any way criticizing Rutan...it's just in this case it wasn't the right fit for the problem. The fastest the plane went was just a hint over 400 mph in 1991--the first year. It went downhill in speed progressively after that.

While I understand that the idea was to isolate the pilot from a fire by having the twin booms, the purpose was kind of defeated by having an inverted "Y" planform, which allowed streaming/burning fuel to run down the boom, down the leading edge of the wing, and right into the cockpit. At this point, I can't remember if they were running methanol, or if they had given up and gone back to avgas, but either way...a flawed design. That plane had explosive cartriges to blow the canopy off...and yet Rick chose to ride the plane to the ground and was still alive as the plane sat there and burned....which leads me to only one conclusion...that there was fuel/fumes in the cockpit and blowing the hatch would have made a bigger boom. Rick died from asphyxiation due to fire in the cockpit...and then burned up with it. That one still leaves a stab in my gut.

I spoke to Rick earlier that summer and he told me directly that that was going to be his last year with the plane. He felt that he owed Bob Pond one more year (1993) and then was done. He didn't like it and in his word it 'just never felt right'. When darn near every flight ended in a Mayday, you can't blame him.

And as for what is left of the plane, I don't know what all was recovered. But as someone with extensive experience building and using composite parts on racing craft, I know from first hand experience that when carbon fiber catches fire, it burns the resin but leaves the cloth...so it would have resulted in a charred pile of fabric. We had a boat burn to the waterline that way.

Just my two cents worth.

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Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives, and I decline......

Yes, a flawed deign in many ways, but what design isn't?

Rutan and Roncz understood intersection drag. If they calculated that it would go fast, and they have a history of meeting their goals, I believe them. I think that the auto engines were the real flaw in the concept. They never put out the intended power, partly I think because of the limitations of the power plant installation itself. I've never seen another plane that needed leaf blowers for ground cooling!

Virtually every time they ran the engines hard one caught fire and there were multiple reasons.

I think they ran gasoline exclusively (as I understand) after the Rutans stepped out of the race team. When Rick crashed it was on gas.

One of the causal factors of the crash was the poor sealing between the nacelles and the cockpit (one of those design flaws) allowing smoke to enter the cockpit. Rick was not running 100 percent oxygen and the smoke he inhaled probably contributed to impaired judgement/skills during the landing phase. He was killed in the fire, but was likely unconscious from the severity of the impact and the elevated carbon monoxide level in his bloodstream.

Rick was a really nice guy and his death had quite an impact on Bob Pond (and many others of course). Rick flew A-7s in the guard and was also a scale R/C champion in his youth. He gave me my first ride in a P-51.

http://dms.ntsb.gov/aviation/AccidentRe ... 120000.pdf

I don't understand why folks aren't willing to just call a spade a spade when it comes to the Pond Racer?

Yes, Rutan is a very smart guy with a great track record, but saying that "the airplane never lived up to it's expectations" doesn't smudge his name, it just says that the airplane never lived up to it's expectations. It never even ventured into the same neighborhood of going as fast or as reliably as Pond paid for.

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Over the years visiting POF, there was a small, damaged peice of composites with some markings and a sign saying it was from the Pond Racer. It was usually leaning against something else, or kind of flopped off in a corner somewhere. I haven't seen it since they took the scale models out of the building they were in and moved Fighter Rebuilders into that space....

I didn't say I thought it was a good plane, only that i don't think that intersection drag was the cause for it not achieving its speed goals.

Yes Randolph, there is a piece of cowling (or fairing) on display.

i have read a fair bit on the subject of this plane and it has been my understanding that the engines never came close to theyre claimed horse power of 1000hp each only reaching 600hp now i know the hp and speed curve is not linear but it would seem to me that if the engines had been putting out theyre advertised 1000 hp the plane would have met its design speed goals!

That's the whole thing. The high-end HP rating for that engine setup was based on running alcohol. Problem was... there wasn't near enough internal capacity for fluids required in that configuration to form up and fly an entire race! Which is why they had to resort to plain ol' avgas. Makes you want to slam your head against the wall! :/



Not only that, but wasn't it also the fuel line itself running to a selector switch in the cockpit??