The liberals like to call those of us living in middle America as NASCAR loving rednecks. KC has a NASCAR track on the western outskirts of Kansas City, KS and there is a number of races scheduled around the year.
But we here in middle America don’t limit our racing to just NASCAR. The truth is that we like just about any kind of racing. Old NFO has a post about a transient aircraft at a small local airport and the effect it had on those present. It reminded me of a race that I attended. A race I remember to this day.
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| Hawker Sea Fury |
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| Hawker Typhoon |
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| F8F Bearcat |
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| F2G Super Corsair |
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| P-51D Miss America |
It was a different kind of race. Air racing. Reno-style. With WW2/Korea era piston-engined fighters like the P-51D, the F8F Bearcat, the F4U/F2G Corsair, the Hawker Typhoon and Sea Fury.
There were two races in the afternoon with a mini-air show in between. There were a number of old fighter aircraft on display including a P-38, F-80, F-87 and a Mig-15. The P-38 and F-80 each did a solo aerobatic demonstration. There was supposed to be a mock dogfight between the F-87 and the Mig-15 but there was some maintenance issue in one of them and they didn’t perform.
My role, as one of the pylon judges, was to observe how close each aircraft came to the pylons. There were strict rules governing how the pylon could be approached, at what altitude, the minimum distance allowable to the pylon and some other rules I’ve now forgotten. Mostly we just laid on the ground and watched the aircraft as they made the turn. My job was to check the approach direction. There were specific rules on the approach vector to insure that if any accident occurred it wouldn’t endanger any of the nearby residences or other structures.
One older local pilot told me to bring some earplugs. I was glad I did. My ears still rang for a day even with the protection of the ear plugs. There’s nothing like the sound of a Merlin or 4-bank radial engine at full power. If you look at the race results below, you see the average speeds were in the neighborhood of 400mph. Many flew well above that.
It was an afternoon to remember.
1993 – Oct 22-24, Kansas City Air Races, Olathe KCChampionship = 1. Bill Destefani, P-51D Strega (v: 408.91). 2. Dennis Sanders, Sea Fury Dreadnought (v: 402.37). 3. Bill Rheinschild, P-51D Risky Business (v: 379.64). 4. Kevin Eldridge, F2G Super Corsair (v: 375.84). 5. Del Williams, P-51D Pegasus (v: 360.26).
Reserve Race = 1. Alan Preston, P-51D Miss America (v: 347.72). 2. Lloyd Hamilton, Sea Fury Baby Gorilla (v: 340.09). 3. Robert Converse, P-51D Huntress III (v: 322.36). 4. Howard Pardue, F8F-1 Bearcat (v: 320.90). 5. Art Vance, P-51D Million Dollar Baby (v: 257.80).