Wildfire

[Tin Man]

Heard a rumor about a possible engine run in the very near future. Can anyone confirm this?

[Blue Foam]

Re: Wildfire

Anyone who is a fan of Wildfire, please delete this now.
















God help us if this kludge makes it to Reno. IM<HO, it's the next worst idea since Mach buster. I cannot count the fundamental mistakes made in configuation, aerodynamics, and structures on this bird. While I may rail at the lack of modern technology used in other Unlimiteds, Wildfire takes the cake.

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: Wildfire

Eric,

I'm not going to delete it.. You wrote it.. You signed it. The folks who are doing the airplane are accessable...

Face to face it with them...

I'll delete stuff that's directly personal but this is *just* generic enough to stand the test..

You wrote it, you own it, you deal with it..

OK?

Wayne

[Wild Bill Kelso]

Re: Wildfire

You wrote it, you own it, you deal with it..



Wayne

Sounds like a ad for public storage. Mad respect!

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: Wildfire

Sounds like a ad for public storage. Mad respect!

Well, try not to add anything to it that's not there FNG...

[Wild Bill Kelso]

Re: Wildfire

Well, try not to add anything to it that's not there FNG...

I wasn't. Besides how could I add to what was already said? Hell I'll go alot of places but that would not be one of them.

[morss]

Re: Wildfire

Hey Eric
Please list those deficiencies. The designer has many patents and received many awards for stuff hes done on completed flying commercial aircraft. Ive spent many days inspecting this plane and have found a lot beneath the surface. Is your opinion based on a glance or did you spend some time with the plane.Not intended as antagonistic Ive worked with you and think you have much to offer.
dave

[First time Juke]

Re: Wildfire

I am not an expert, but Wildfire looks rugged. I think that is a good thing in a racer. Wingfairings perhaps slightly clumsy looking at one stage.

I have heard that it may have a tendency to nose over at landing ( rumour ). Is this true ? Main landing gear would be too behind ?

I respect the WILDFIRE team a lot for their effort.

Heck I wasn't even able to make my smallish model of my racer flying.


Just my two cents.

[alaskaracer]

Re: Wildfire

Dave,
I know you were scheduled to fly Wildfire. Are there any new developments with it and can it be expected to make an appearance in Sept?

[AirDOGGe]

Re: Wildfire

I think the airframe has some very interesting features and could be a winner (layman's opinion), but I still think one needs more than an R2800 to be competitive as an unlimited. I hope I am proved wrong. Go go, Wildfire!

http://www.wildfireairracing.com/history.htm

.

[speeddemon]

Re: Wildfire

The thing most people need to remember here is, the concept for Wildfire came about almost 30 years ago. Metal was first cut and construction started in the late '70's....and first flight in the early '80's.

Remember the race speeds that were prevalent at that time. The qualifying record was a whopping 438 mph. The race record was 432 mph.

THAT is what the Statler family and Charlie Beck were aiming for when the 'Super Six' concept started.

By the time the plane flew, records were up to around 450 or so. But then it sat dormant for 20 years...and a LOT of technology has put speeds up another 50 mph.

So the plane has a lot of catching up to do that way. Will it WIN with a 2800? Unlikely. But with work, and an infusion of dollars, it could be a solid 400+ mph racer, that would fly around at those speeds all day long.

Just my .02 as a distant observer of this project since it was first announced.

[Blue Foam]

Re: Wildfire

Hey Eric
Please list those deficiencies. The designer has many patents and received many awards for stuff hes done on completed flying commercial aircraft. Ive spent many days inspecting this plane and have found a lot beneath the surface. Is your opinion based on a glance or did you spend some time with the plane.Not intended as antagonistic Ive worked with you and think you have much to offer.
dave

Dave,

It's been too long, we need to talk; there's lots of things going on. About Wildfire, first lets look at some positives based on what I have seen on the web site:
1. I believe the aircraft is airworthy. It looks solidly constructed, in some areas a little too much so.
2. IMHO, the 2800 is the best feature. Yes, a slow-nose-case-PRT-section-removed 3350 would be more powerful. It would also be heavier and larger in diameter Let's remember that P&W pushed a 2800 on the stand to over 5000 HP for longer than we race. I believe that this is the most under-rated powerplant in Unlimiteds today.
3. The design team has a great pedegree.
4. The tails look properly sized and have very good aspect ratios. With correct CG, you should have good stick centering and force gradients. I believe the infamous test flight issue was simply a CG error that sounds like it has been properly addressed.
5. NICE canopy! It appears to have a gentle enough pressure recovery to prevent separation without needing a turtledeck.

Now, the not so good...
Structure: As I said before, it looks stout enough. That said, there appears to be little to no integretion of the wing box into the fuselage; they just seem to be set one on top of the other. While this can be strong, why was there no attempt to move the wing up in the fuselage cross section and use up some of the empty space in front of the pilot? Lighter, stronger, less drag, better wing root interface, etc.? Which leads us to...

Aerodynamics: This falls into several areas, so let's start with the wing root. No integretion of the leading edge into the forward fuselage, cowling, exhausts, outlets, etc. If they were separated by a little space, there might be some hope of dealing with each one and the issues they cause. Not here. Everything just seems to crash together in an effort to promote massive stagnation. Not poor integretion, none.

The trailing edge wing root is even harder to understand. This type of root fairing was proven decades ago to promote separation. Yes, it's better than nothing. But the rest of the industry recognized the issue in the 50's and moved the lower fuselage OML below the trailing edge on low wing aircraft. Looking at a modern directory of kit planes, we can see that many aircraft designers have not learned this lesson even today, nearly half a century later. Expect at least 2, maybe 3 square feet of flat plat drag from just the root fairings.

Wing: Same issue as with most unlimiteds, too little span, too much area. L/D is directly proportional to the square root of the wetted aspect ratio and the biggest factor there is span. Yes, we can argue about the difficulties of going from the F1 de facto standard wing aspect ratio of 8 up to where the trade studies say it should be between 12 and 15. However, an aspect ratio of 4??? Even without the separation drag, this REALLY limits the design.

Wetted area: Looks like 840 to 880 sq. ft. This makes the wetted aspect ratio about 1.1, for an L/D of 9 to 11 (neglecting the wing root). The Bear and Dago run about .1 higher and have far less separation. Factor in the separation and the L/D should be ~6. Light is good, but size matters and wetted area vs. HP rules.

Tail geometry: The horizontal stabilizer is located where it will be enveloped in the separated flow from the inboard wing in and near stall alpha. Lots of designs have this issue, it would have been better if the H tail were mounted lower.

Spinner and cowl: With all of the experimental and theoretical evidence pointing to larger spinners and lower capture area with internal decelleration of the cooling flow, why is Wildfire taking a 70 year leap backward to small spinner/high capture area/external decelleration? I do like the carb inlet though.

Not a quick glance. The deeper I looked at it the more I kept going back to the team bios. The only explanation I can come up with was that too little time was spent doing trade studies before metal was cut. This happens a lot in aviation and air racing. The big guys live and die by the honesty and thoroughness of their trade studies. A lot of good design information is out there that cost literally billons of someone else's money. Anyone trying to get out there and win should adopt as much of that very exspensive technology as they can.

ps- Wayne, you ought to know by now that I only post things that I am willing to own. Sorry I upset the boat, I've pulled many punches in the past and you know about a lot of them.

[Race 29]

Re: Wildfire

Yeah, but it has a smoke tinted canopy!

Seriously, I really don't care if it wins at this point. I'd personally just love to see it fly and add another racer to the lineup. Wouldn't most of these issues come out in flight testing?

Not busting anyone's chops at all. I just want to see it happen.

Race 29

[John]

Re: Wildfire

No doubt if they put a Seafury type cowling and spinner on Wildfire it would help it in the looks department.

I think Dave Morse has flown a more homely looking airplane though; that being the I-19 Polycarpov.

all in fun.

[stuntflyr]

Re: Wildfire

"That said, there appears to be little to no integretion of the wing box into the fuselage; they just seem to be set one on top of the other. While this can be strong, why was there no attempt to move the wing up in the fuselage cross section and use up some of the empty space in front of the pilot?"

Eric,
Could it be that the T-6 gear wouldn't have been long enough to keep the prop out of the dirt? Whenever I see that thing I think of one word, "cobhouse".

One would think that designers with Lockheed experience would put a big Citation X-like wing to fuse fairing over that whole mess on the bottom. Every airliner has a similar shape, and the L-1011 sure did.

?????

Chris...