Warbird Information Exchange

Some already know this, but it has been officially announced that Steven Hinton, Jr. will be attempting a world speed record for the fastest prop-driven aircraft in the world. This will occur prior to the Reno Air Races in the highly modified P-51, "Voodoo". In order to beat the record, the attempt will have to attain 533+ MPH to break the old record held by Lyle Shelton in "Rare Bear".

The aircraft has had some special "one off" modifications to increase the speeds on the aircraft, including a new wing airfoil. Supposedly, the aircraft has already reached 565 mph in flight testing.

More info can be seen on Planes of Fame's facebook page:

https://tinyurl.com/y89mjf33

Best of luck to Steven, I hope he breaks the record!

Fastest piston-engined prop-driven aircraft if he beats Shelton's record. I believe there are a number of turboprops faster than this, though not sure what the outright record is now.

Anyone?

I'm not on F----book. Is there a date for this attempt ?

I'm not going to Reno this year....

Go Steve-o...

1000 Posts..
Phil

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The record is a 3km course under 1500' AGL. The plane must remain within 300' start to finish.

Any records for turboprops would have been at a much higher altitude.

Yes, correct. I meant piston-engined. In other words, reciprocating engine, non-turbo-prop.

Details are not out in the public. All I know is that it is going to happen prior to Reno. I don't know where it will be held. My guess is that it is going to be held someplace at a high elevation and a high temperature, so the true air speed will be higher.

Word on the 'net is that it's in Idaho. Otherwise it's all very hush-hush.

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Zac in NZ
#avgeek, modelbuilder, photographer, writer. Callsign: "HANDBAG".
https://linktr.ee/zacyates

"It's his plane, he spent the money to restore it, he can do with it what he wants. I will never understand what's hard to comprehend about this." - kalamazookid, 20/08/2013
"The more time you spend around warbirds the sooner you learn nothing, is simple." - JohnB, 24/02/22

Just as an FYI, because Rare Bear's record run was in 1989, it's actually no longer the "Fastest Internal Combustion Aeroplane" according to the FAI. Sometime after that, they changed the Internal Combustion Aeroplane class to have sub-classes for weight (a - d). As such, the standing record was "retired" and currently the Yak-3U "SteadFast" flown by Will Whiteside, Jr., is actually the current record holder in the C-1d class at a mere 669.63 km/h (416.09 mph) set in October 2011 at Wendover, UT. The next closest record is for the C-1c category and is held by John Sharp in his Nemesis NXT at 669.08 km/h (415.78 mph), set in September 2015 in Moriarty, NM.

Interestingly, the current C-1d Turboprop 3km closed course record is significantly slower at 449.71 km/h (279.44 mph) set by a TBM-700 out of Las Cruces, NM. The absolute record for a 3km course is held by a Lancair Turbine IV-P at 570.33 km/h (354.39 mph).

Important of note here - all the closed course speed records currently active were flown from airports with a field elevation around 5000 feet MSL.

The "absolute" Closed Course record for Turboprops appears to be held by the Tu-142 (a modified version of the Tu-95) at 834.28 km/h (518.40 mph) over a 2000km course. Next to several Tu-142/Tu-95 records, the next fastest airplane over a closed course is the C-130J which achieved a speed of 637.58 km/h (396.17 mph) over a 1000 km course. After that, you drop below 500 km/h for a closed course. There are straight line and point-to-point records above that, but all of those I don't count because they allow weather to factor in (i.e. they're all Eastbound flights between cities and likely got significant Jet Stream help).

PS - I tried to write this post this afternoon but got busy and wasn't able to finish the research. Sadly the FAI doesn't have a great search engine to find the standing records.

What's the word on Rare Bear ?
She was at Reno last year, but static.

Phil

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A man's got to know his limitations.

Rod Lewis is not racing anything this year at Reno, including Rare Bear. Rumor is that he is finished with Air Racing. Can somebody confirm this?

How fast did the Red Barron go?

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According to Wikipedia: "On August 14, 1979, Hinton set the piston-driven aircraft 3-kilometer world speed record at 499.018 mph at Tonopah, Nevada, making Hinton, age 27, the youngest person ever to capture the speed record."

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Zac in NZ
#avgeek, modelbuilder, photographer, writer. Callsign: "HANDBAG".
https://linktr.ee/zacyates

"It's his plane, he spent the money to restore it, he can do with it what he wants. I will never understand what's hard to comprehend about this." - kalamazookid, 20/08/2013
"The more time you spend around warbirds the sooner you learn nothing, is simple." - JohnB, 24/02/22

"Corporate White"

Looks like this team is all-business. Good Luck to them!

That's impressive: my brain performed the same regurgitation of info. That's not bad for me, nearly 40 years after the event!!