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SAGA
OF DAGO
September Reno Air Races 2004
by Skip Holm
These
were hot August nights in
Provo, Utah.
This was air race season |
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The Dago
Red crew had been working through the nights and days to
install the engine that would give Dago Red another race
victory, the sixth consecutive win in a row, making Dago Red
the winningest racer in the history of air racing. The engine
had taken approximately eight months to overhaul, inspect, and
repair. A new crank and new main bearings had needed to be
installed, as well as traditional components from running such
high manifold pressure. The Dago team had tried a new power
setting in the 2003 race and this had been disastrous to the
engine. The torque had been so great that the crankshaft had
flexed between the bearings, in the longitudinal axis, with
the consequence being the edges of the main crankshaft
bearings had broken off and had been found laying in the oil
pan.
On 15 August, the team of Kerch, Mike, Dave, Steve, Dan and
Clay had installed the engine and were ground running the
engine. I arrived shortly thereafter and as the flying
started, this engine had accumulated 9 hours of flight time.
It was the most prepared engine we had seen in years of
racing, and we were set for success. All the flights were
without any concern, with the engine feeling and operating
very well. After landing from the last break-in flight, race
fuel was added and the last power flight was planned prior to
the team going home. As Kerch so aptly put it, “We had a
package!” The plane was ready for Reno 2004!
Luckily for our race team, guys are what they are throughout
the world, and ours was no exception. The food had arrived
and all the crew stopped doing and started eating. The eating
gave way to gabbing and as the rest of us continued to yammer
on about nothings, Dave went back to the racer and decided to
inspect one more filter. We had inspected the main filter
after the last flight and had found nothing of consequence, so
the expectation was to find nothing in the smaller filters
also. As Dave took the last filter off, he saw metal bronze
shavings that precipitated sending the engine back to
California and having it re-overhauled. We considered this to
be extremely good luck in times of extremely bad luck, as we
still had time to make the Reno race schedule.
More hot
August nights.
More Provo.
More engine work.
More problems.
On September eve, after working night and day in the Dwight
Thorn’s engine shop, Steve, Mike, Kerch, Eric and John had
done the impossible again; they had put together the second
engine package, installing a new crankshaft, bearings, and new
50 year old race-ready parts. The engine was again on the way
to Provo for installation in Dago Red. On 3 September, we
flew Dago Red for the first time with this new engine. All
was well in the Dago Red racing world.
The engine break-in took two days and on the second day a long
flight was planned, to culminate in adding race fuel for a
power run and subsequent flight to Reno. This lengthy flight
went as planned, and as the hour long flight was finishing,
numerous planes had entered the pattern at Provo for the
planned airshow that day, as well as several student pilot
planes were vying for take-off positions.
Within the next minute, a plane on landing roll experienced a
ground loop, leaving parts and debris on the runway, the
airport manager pickup had driven on the active, someone on
the frequency had declared the runway was closed, a student
pilot had taxied onto the runway anticipating takeoff, and the
Dago Red engine quit in flight. This combination of events
and subsequent actions happened in space warp time, and
initially, the dead stick seemed acceptable to me, but soon
turned very exciting. I called a Mayday, saying I was landing
on runway 13. The traffic on the runway did not respond to
the Mayday by exiting the runway, so I again called Mayday,
commanding the traffic to exit the runway immediately. They
again did not exit, but stopped on the runway. The Dago Red
ground crew now repeated on the Dago Red channel that the
pickup and planes were still on the runway, and the runway was
still closed. I had turned toward the runway for the landing
but immediately realized that I was not going to clear the
traffic on this angle, so I turned to an off angle and off
runway approach.
Also, by now, I had great apprehension on even making it onto
the solid ground that protruded from the swamp land and the
dike area. I had made a decision to lower the gear, forcing
me to land on some area that would sustain a gear down
landing. Dago Red was the only ride I had at Reno and did not
want to ruin the high speed slick paint job by belling in the
puppy. I also thought of Jeannie’s belly landing in 1980, so
lifted the flaps and the cooling door, thinking in my mind
that these items were hard to replace or fix in case of some
additional damage in the landing phase.
As I dove toward the airfield, I was reminded of a well used
phrase I use when teaching pilots to fly high performance jets
or props – always crash on the airfield! I dove toward the
field, actually the dike, trying to avoid the dike and the 10
foot chain link fence that was built above the dike. As I
approached the dike in the dive, I would have bet you my prize
Pomeranian plastic puppy that the tail wheel would catch the
fence above the dike. Believing it is always better to be
lucky than good, I, still sitting 10 feet ahead of the low
flying tail wheel, whisked over the chain link fence. I now
knew I was on the airport area, so I held the plane off as
much as possible, with full aft stick, touching down just
beyond the marsh in a tail first attitude. Just prior to the
tail wheel touching, I hit a power pole with the left wing,
while still in flight. Dago then touched down on the mains,
rolling to a stop with the prop just along for the ride. The
only damage to the plane was the left wing and shrapnel wounds
on the underside from the rocks thrown by the wheels on
touchdown.
We left the hot August nights for the cold Reno races.
Dago Red qualified in #1 position.
We
qualified on Monday, going slightly faster than Rare Bear.
The interesting part of this qualification was that both Rare
Bear and Dago Red were on the qualifying lap at the same
time. I had taken off behind Rare Bear and entered the course
about a half lap behind Rare Bear. I had S-turned prior to
joining the race course, getting spacing behind Rare Bear,
surmising that this half lap would work good for the both of
us as we would both be running at approximately the same
speed. As I came around pylon #5, I was amazed to note that
the Bear passed me with what looked like an overtake of 50+
knots. At that point, I told myself to push this puppy up,
for the speeds would not even be similar if this was any
indication.
After
qualifying, someone asked me why the qualifying speeds were so
close. I knew the answer, as I told them it was a tailgating
technique. As the Bear passed me on pylon #5, the 18 wheeler
syndrome, the tailgating tactic, the sucked along technique
from that machine had moved me slightly faster than his
speed. This accounted for the close but slightly faster speed
of the Dago Red flying machine.
Dago Red ran explicably good at Reno.
Dago Dog fans now wear warm Dago Red jackets
The races
on Friday and Saturday went as we had planned. We had had
several problems with Dago, one of which was a problem on
Saturday with canopy fogging. We analyzed this fogging
problem and corrected it as much as we thought we could for
Sunday’s race.
Sunday started out as a cold day and stayed that way.
Luckily, the Dago Red team had gotten warm Dago Dog jackets
for the loyal Dago Dog fans. Ironically, we had anticipated a
cold year, but had not expected a COLD year. The P-51 racers
work better in hotter weather, as we carry our cooling water
internally, and do not depend entirely on the outside
temperature to regulate our temperatures. We get much better
speeds in warm to hot weather at the same power we use to get
nominal speeds in cold weather.
The Sunday’s race was a fiasco from the onset to the end.
With snow falling on the hills within 4 miles of Stead, RARA
decided to run the Unlimited Gold race hours before it was
scheduled to happen. When this happened, there was much
confusion on the ramp, for all the Gold race planes were not
ready to run. One was Rare Bear, as they were still busy
loading nitrous. We had asked for a delay in the racing to
allow all the planes to participate, and for all planes to
race when they had been scheduled. The way it ultimately
worked was that the Gold launched prior to the Jet Races, in
the middle of the worst weather of the day. Steve led us to
the start of the race via downtown Reno, aptly keeping us
clear of all the clouds, and starting the race in an excellent
manner.
As Steve
called for the race start, I pushed the power up,
simultaneously looking at Rare Bear for any changes in
relative positioning. As the power came up and the resultant
water was dumped on the 240 degree radiator below the cockpit,
the cockpit slowly started to fog over on both the left and
right side. I had experienced this fogging on Saturday, to
which we had sealed some radiator to cockpit pressure leaks
and had also Clay-technique treated the canopy on Sunday
morning. I had anticipated a better anti-fogging condition
than on Saturday. This fogging was much worst! As Dago
rounded pylon #6 on the first lap, I had wiped the forward
canopy clear and was starting on the left side. Looking
ahead, I saw what looked like IFR conditions in the vicinity
of pylon #7, and once entering this area of precipitation, I
quickly realized that the weather that was outside of the
canopy wanted to also be inside the canopy. I now attempted
to quickly invent a wiping and flying technique (‘quickly’
being the definitive word in this paragraph), as I realized
the precipitation around pylon #7 would always be there and
the resultant fogging would always occur from there to about
pylon #4.
This was
the start of lap #1.
This was fun! Is this fun?
The outhouse on pylon #4/
I was still in the midst of inventing, clarifying, verifying,
and coordinating this wiping technique while flying the
machine as I cleared home pylon and turned to #1 and #3.
There would logically be some delay from precipitation wetting
to fogging, and I was about to experience it based on time of
flight from pylon #7 to pylon #4. As I approached pylon #3, I
knew that my technique of wiping and flying needed some
adjustments, and these adjustments would take some more
distance than what I now had. Knowing that the guide pylon
had a light on it, I saw it and aimed for it. Once past the
light, I delayed slightly over two seconds and turned, based
on my past 446 times around this racecourse, and of course,
this time, I blew it. I cut pylon #4 by 280 feet. This was
later relayed to me by the emotional pylon #4 judge, who said
the distance was based on the outhouse being 200 feet from the
pylon, saying I was well outside of the outhouse. He said the
outhouse had been placed this far away from the pylon in order
to comply with the scatter distance requirements of the
racecourse, but also in a tongue-in-cheek remark confessed
that the distance works well for some of the food digestive
problems of various visitors to the pylon.
I recognized the cut on pylon #4, but did not know if it was a
big cut or merely an over-fly, no-cut, canopy still beyond the
pylon condition, or even if Rare Bear had followed. Once this
happened, I flew to the light on pylon #6, starting back down
the backstretch toward the snowstorm around pylon #7, to see
if I had mastered the wipe technique from flying through the
precip.
Pylon judges and poor jokes.
The pylon
judges have a gathering on the ramp at Reno during each race
week. My wife Dede and I attended, as well as Chris, Steve,
Margaret and Mark from the team. None of us had ever been to
a pylon party before, and as we found out later, no race pilot
had shown up at one for the past 20 years either. As the
party started, different folks would get up, go to the front
of the room, grab the mike, and tell a joke. As we listened
to these poor to middle jokes, Dede suggested that one of us
go up and tell a joke. Both Steve and I did, and we later
both won a prize for the best jokes.
My joke was about the blonde on the airline who sat in first
class and when asked to move back to coach because the
stewardess knew there was no one seated in first class on this
leg, states, “I’m blonde and beautiful, and I’m going to stay
here”. The stewardess then gets the 1st Officer to
try and move the girl, and she only repeats, I’m blonde and
beautiful, and I’m going to stay here”. The 1st
Officer then says the Captain has a blonde wife and maybe he
can get this girl to move. The Captain goes up to the girl,
whispers something in her ear and she immediately sashays back
to coach. Both the stewardess and 1st Officer want
to know how the Captain got the girl to move so quickly. The
Captain responded by saying that he merely asked her where she
was going. She responded, “Houston”. The Captain then told
her, “Miss, first class does not stop in Houston.”
Prior to leaving, I thanked the pylon judges and their
volunteers for the self sacrificing work they do each year in
supporting the air races for the fans and the pilot and race
team personnel. They cheered as we left, chanting, “No cuts
for Dago, no cuts for Dago”. Integrity lives at pylon #4.
Laps #2
through #8
Snow in the cockpit.
Coming through the precipitation on pylon #7, I found the wipe
technique worked, and it was time to settle down and race
relaxed. I still wondered (1) did I cut #4, (2) did Rare Bear
cut #4, (3) is Rare Bear going to stay with me for the whole
race, (4) is Rare Bear going to implode or explode, which
would allow me to win, (5) is Rare Bear going to pass, in
which case I would pull out of the race, as I was not too sure
I could see well enough to fly a tight formation at race power
going through the snow-rain on pylon #7, and of course, (6)
what will Terry and the crew say when this is all over? Too
many questions, and none of them boring. I elected to keep
enough power whipping through that Merlin to ensure that any
#2 would stay there, plus I’m an optimist and still thought
anything could happen. Unfortunately, the anything did not
happen and Dago Red came in #2.
Pulling off and setting up for landing,
I saw Rare Bear on final to be the first to land, but then saw
one gear down and one gear up. I knew he would have to go
around and recycle the gear. I though God knows who should be
in front on the racecourse, in the landing pattern, or in the
lineup at the grandstand. This “God knows” has been a
favorite saying in my life as I grew up. Things happen, but
still remain as they are meant to be or have to be. Dago Red
seems at times to be alive and have a mind and consciousness
of it’s own -- it knows it’s place in the matrix of race
planes: It was first in the race, first in the landing pattern
and first at the grandstand. Dago Red is a warrior, and a
hell of a raceplane!
RACE RESULTS |
