- Joined
- Oct 31, 2015
- Messages
- 215
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Folks,
Here's the story on my off-season work to make the #3 Smokin' Hot™ Pitts a bit faster, and a bit safer.
As some of you know, we shattered the prop on #3 last year while racing in the final Biplane Gold race at Reno. While I didn't know it at the time, I had also nearly blown the engine (may have been related to one another). I declared the "Mayday-Mayday , Race 3, Runway 26" over the Race Control frequency and pitched out of the race, made a right-270 and landed back on Runway 26. Once back in Tennessee, the plane sat idle in my hangar from September through March as I had sick parents to attend to (Dad ultimately passed in January). Thinking I was finally getting "ahead" of the game to prepare for Reno, we started to look at reassembly and modifications in late March/early April.
We got a new prop from Catto to replace the broken one, this one was more specialized for the speeds we were running and RPMs we were turning, but I just had a funny feeling about strapping the new prop on and heading off to fly. I talked to Allen Barrett (Barrett Precision Engines) and he suggested that with the problems I had at Reno that it would be prudent to take the engine to him to have a look at the internals. My crew and I removed the engine and I drove it out to Barrett's facility on April 30. He said that if I had a spare four hours that I could watch the disassembly (sounds good to me). Unfortunately, with the first piece removed (oil sump plug), we immediately found metal. Not just powder-like pieces...full-on big pieces with jagged-edges and part numbers stamped! As the teardown continued my heart sank further and further. Metal everywhere. Clearly signs of detonation and thermal distress inside. I left Tulsa in a sour mood. I couldn't even tell my wife for two days and she's an avid air racing supporter. Ultimately, we made the decision to have Allen perform a full Major Overhaul and include some racing mods. We wanted power and reliability and knew that Allen Barrett was our man. To be continued....
Here's the story on my off-season work to make the #3 Smokin' Hot™ Pitts a bit faster, and a bit safer.
As some of you know, we shattered the prop on #3 last year while racing in the final Biplane Gold race at Reno. While I didn't know it at the time, I had also nearly blown the engine (may have been related to one another). I declared the "Mayday-Mayday , Race 3, Runway 26" over the Race Control frequency and pitched out of the race, made a right-270 and landed back on Runway 26. Once back in Tennessee, the plane sat idle in my hangar from September through March as I had sick parents to attend to (Dad ultimately passed in January). Thinking I was finally getting "ahead" of the game to prepare for Reno, we started to look at reassembly and modifications in late March/early April.
We got a new prop from Catto to replace the broken one, this one was more specialized for the speeds we were running and RPMs we were turning, but I just had a funny feeling about strapping the new prop on and heading off to fly. I talked to Allen Barrett (Barrett Precision Engines) and he suggested that with the problems I had at Reno that it would be prudent to take the engine to him to have a look at the internals. My crew and I removed the engine and I drove it out to Barrett's facility on April 30. He said that if I had a spare four hours that I could watch the disassembly (sounds good to me). Unfortunately, with the first piece removed (oil sump plug), we immediately found metal. Not just powder-like pieces...full-on big pieces with jagged-edges and part numbers stamped! As the teardown continued my heart sank further and further. Metal everywhere. Clearly signs of detonation and thermal distress inside. I left Tulsa in a sour mood. I couldn't even tell my wife for two days and she's an avid air racing supporter. Ultimately, we made the decision to have Allen perform a full Major Overhaul and include some racing mods. We wanted power and reliability and knew that Allen Barrett was our man. To be continued....
