Warbird Information Exchange

Saw a glimpse of the rough schedule for Reno 2019 today. Pretty standard.

Takeaways:

-7 Unlimited races, only one on Thursday. Waiting for entry confirmation but it can't be more than 12 or so entered
-Thunderbirds 45 minute show, I assume that means they will be stationed at Reno/Tahoe, which I fully support
-Legacy Flight with a Corsair rather than the Fury, which surprises me because I don't know which Corsair will do it (Tobul, CAF Dixie Wing, Collings, and Cavanaugh are the only Corsairs w/ certified Legacy pilots, all of them pretty far from NV.
-AWESOME job with entertainment after racers take off and form up. A third of the races during the day (starting Thursday) have entertainment during the form up, this entertainment includes the STOL demo two or three times a day, Draco STOL and max climb demo once a day, and the HondaJet demo once a day.
-Flippy-floppy is eh, Wiskus and Holland both once a day (15 minutes for each) at least they're both very good pilots in relatively different aircraft
-CAF warbird 15 minute demo once a day, similar to last year's

Everything else is pretty standard, all the classes besides Unlimited have the same amount of heats as last year, gonna be a very packed weekend! On top of all the action, it'll be nice to have NAHI back as well.

This is a very early schedule, we could see some military flybys added like they typically are every year.

Some updates in RED:

-7 Unlimited races, only one on Thursday. Waiting for entry confirmation but it can't be more than 12 or so entered. *The entries should be publicly posted this week if not today, there are currently 12 Unlimited's entered with a possible 15 showing up.
-Thunderbirds 45 minute show, I assume that means they will be stationed at Reno/Tahoe, which I fully support. *Thunderbirds have confirmed staging from Reno/Tahoe.
-Legacy Flight with a Corsair rather than the Fury, which surprises me because I don't know which Corsair will do it (Tobul, CAF Dixie Wing, Collings, and Cavanaugh are the only Corsairs w/ certified Legacy pilots, all of them pretty far from NV).
-AWESOME job with entertainment after racers take off and form up. A third of the races during the day (starting Thursday) have entertainment during the form up, this entertainment includes the STOL demo two or three times a day, Draco STOL and max climb demo once a day, and the HondaJet demo once a day.
-Flippy-floppy is eh, Wiskus and Holland both once a day (15 minutes for each) at least they're both very good pilots in relatively different aircraft
-CAF warbird 15 minute demo once a day, similar to last year's

Graeme Frew and Full Noise won't be there unfortunately, they're taking the year off.

KiwiZac wrote:Graeme Frew and Full Noise won't be there unfortunately, they're taking the year off.

Hopefully her and the new stable mate can have some fun with Lylia and Race 26 at Reno 2020

GRNDP51 wrote:Hopefully her and the new stable mate can have some fun with Lylia and Race 26 at Reno 2020

I won't lie, when the news of Steadfast's move came through that thought did immediately come to mind!

GRNDP51 wrote:-Legacy Flight with a Corsair rather than the Fury, which surprises me because I don't know which Corsair will do it (Tobul, CAF Dixie Wing, Collings, and Cavanaugh are the only Corsairs w/ certified Legacy pilots, all of them pretty far from NV.

Pretty safe bet that it will be the PoF Corsair I would think.

C VEICH wrote:

GRNDP51 wrote:-Legacy Flight with a Corsair rather than the Fury, which surprises me because I don't know which Corsair will do it (Tobul, CAF Dixie Wing, Collings, and Cavanaugh are the only Corsairs w/ certified Legacy pilots, all of them pretty far from NV.

Pretty safe bet that it will be the PoF Corsair I would think.

It got switched back to the FJ-4 as expected. Steve isn't Legacy qualified in the Corsair, that's the reason I took PoF off the table.

Anybody there or going this year ?

Phil

Live streaming on YouTube thru Reno Air Race website.

Got tired of listening to all the advertisements from the announcer. Guess you have to pay the bills.

Please let us know about the restored aircraft award (sponsored by Rolls Royce, IIRC)...a Stearman restored by a friend for the HFF (Historic Flight Foundation) is entered.

I'm afraid that no matter how nice it is, it won't get an award...Stearmans, no matter how nice, are just too common, not much of a "wow" factor.

For winners at Reno vintage aircraft judging fire up heritagetrophy.org and click on “winners circle” to see who and what got trophies

So, Reno came and went without a peep this year. I see from their website that Pretty Polly dropped out of silver early on and both Miss America and Argonaut DNF’ed on Sunday. Any intel from someone who was there?

Watched the live stream myself of the Gold race (was at work, so couldn't see everything as I wanted). Argo said something about ADI not working right when he bailed. Didn't hear Miss America's call to see if they said what happened. Unfortunately, I think this year was the year of mechanical issues. Sawbones lost its canopy, at least 1 Unlimited, 2 Sport, and 1 Jet bailed out of nearly every race, including the class-leading Vampire not starting its race because of an electrical issue on Saturday and thus not being part of Sunday. Hell, I never heard what happened, but Steve wasn't able to get the T-33 going for the Gold Unlimited race, so Dennis ended up being Pole Sitter, Pace Plane, and Race Starter in Dreadnaught.

All in all, it was a kind of weird year.

Thanks for the recap!