Re: Whatever happened to....

Hi all,
I've just finished going through the Air Racin' forum since the beginning - it's been very slow at work so I needed to keep busy - and was wondering whatever happened to/any updates on any of the following...

- Miss Merced and Furias
*Both owned by T-6 pilot Eric Woelbing in Wisconsin, he's raced for 2 years and wants to bring Furias back 'eventually', maybe he will surprise us with Miss M next year..?
- the rumoured rebuild/replica/clone of Miss Ashley II
*I remember this, don't know if it is true
- the mystery Griffon Mustang racer in Texas in a workshop with two Hs
*Similar to Miss A II, don't think it's very true
- Shockwave, Wildfire (Matt J posted in January he estimated it might be a year from flight test) and American Spirit aka The Racer aka the Jackson/Cornell project
*I might be able to reach out to Matt, after he raced Strega he made it clear he was done racing, I imagine that somewhat slowed down the drive to get it finished
- rumours of a Super Corsair II? I may have misread...
- the restoration of the Bearcat painted as Gulfhawk IV at Chino
*It's in restoration at Chino still, that actually is 1 of the 2 Gulfhawks, the other one painted in yellow civilian scheme is close to airworthy, very close, it is not a Gulfhawk. The other Gulfhawk is Palm Spring's
- the Allison Yak at Redding
*Progressing nicely... Slow but steady, going to be a very fast plane, designed to beat the Ghost...
- David Hoover's Yak at Hayward
- the tooling and any drawings created by the late Jim Wright for his beautiful Hughes H-1
- are the Pond Racer moulds really/still in a trailer at Planes of Fame Valle? There was a Dec 2015 post here saying folks weren't sure what was left and there was a picture of the fuselage plug

Re: Whatever happened to....

I can give you a little second hand info, I'm sure there's folks on here that know a lot more then I do. First, from my understanding the Bearcat at Chino was the Gulfhawk that crashed after an engine failure at Oshkiosh several years ago. By the way, I saw that airplane at the Tracy warbird airshow and it was beautiful. I believe Steve Hinton owns it and is rebuilding it. I think they work on it when they have time. I heard it will be painted in military scheme. Personally, I loved the Gulkhawk paint job.

I heard Wildfire is still being worked on and they hope to have it flying in another year or so. I believe Matt Jackson is involved with the project and is spending a few days a month working on it. It would be interesting to know all the details about this project, since my understanding is that it flew years and years ago. Seems like I read that it had some major stability problems and the flight was basically just around the pattern once. Dave Morse did some taxi test on it a few years ago too. That airplane has a very unique look to it, bordering on scary looking.......that's just my opinion. Seems like I heard the fuselage is a T-6 that has been beefed up.......hopefully someone else can chime in here with more accurate info and details. Wildfire has a website, although the last time I looked it hadn't been updated for awhile.

Re: Whatever happened to....

I'd be curious to know if the Bearcat being restored is actually being modified like the original Gulfhawk IV was, or is it just being restored to a normal Bearcat configuration? The Gulfhawk IV was actually something like 3000 lbs lighter than a normal Bearcat and therefore it performed much better...

Re: Whatever happened to....

Gulfhawk IV - what a nice looking Bearcat.

I Googled it and came up with this shot from FlightSimm.com

Re: Whatever happened to....

There was no mechanical failure on Gulfhawk IV. The pilot was used to the controls in the Mustang and made a mistake. I’ve stomped a brake by mistake in an auto car because I’m used to a clutch, so it’s easy to understand.

Re: Whatever happened to....

Isn't that the truth. Up until last year all 4 of my vehicles were manual trans.

Several times when I rented cars I hit the brakes, or worse tried to shift the auto lever :-)

Now I have one auto trans vehicle and its taking some learning to drive the damm thing.

Re: Whatever happened to....

The Gulfhawk in Chino (not the original) also had 2 seats, I think it's the only Bearcat that ever had a second seat in it. I believe the canopy was different to accommodate the second seat.

Re: Whatever happened to....

I just looked at my pic from Sat- no more second seat. it’s been put back to single seat and stock canopy again. It’s a real Deja Vu seeing it go back together again.

Re: Whatever happened to....

Howard always kept his poker face, but I think he was impressed:



Tracy3- by Neal Nurmi, on Flickr

And regarding Bearcat back seats, I think Race 98 had a back seat with rollover structure removed for a while when Herlihy had it back in the late 1970s.

Neal

Re: Whatever happened to....

From what i read around the web about wildfire, the wing centre was originally T-6, but that was about it, fuse was basically scratch built in the end along the lines of a T-6 but bigger and beefier for the R2800, the original test pilot threw the carefully planned test schedule out the window and never listened to the builders after over selling his capabilities then when it went wrong he proceeded to bad mouth the project.
Infact, there is a great interview here on aafo that was done by Bill Pearce in 2004 here with the Wildfire designer and builders..

Re: Whatever happened to....

John Herlihey put a back seat in N198F in 1983~'84 using the stock canopy.
He told us that the reason he sold his P-51 "This is it" was because it had a back seat for when his wife wanted to fly with him and after he got a back seat in the Bearcat he "didn't need the Mustang anymore".

Re: Whatever happened to....

Other way around. The fuselage was the tube frame off of a T-6. The cockpit is where the back seat of the T-6 is. The wing is entirely new build, with T-6 landing gear and wheels.

The test pilot was Joe Guthrie from Flight Systems. And he didn't throw away the test schedule. The plane was doing its very first high-speed taxi test on the runway at Mojave. The c.g. on the airplane was so far out of whack aft that the plane became airborne at a relatively low speed and steep climb angle. Rather than try to bring the plane back down on the runway from a nose-high attitude with limited visibility, Guthrie elected to try to get the airplane in somewhat level trim and make a circuit around the pattern to set up for an emergency landing. It was a struggle, but he did get the airplane down in one piece. Once he shut down he promptly walked away, vowing never to sit in it again. Thus began a he-said/she-said war of words between the pilot and the owners in an attempt for both sides to save face that has lasted over 30 years. The fact that the airplane has never left terra-firma again, despite several highly experienced pilots (Holm, Morss, Jackson) working on the project kind of says something.

Re: Whatever happened to....

Joe's yo-yo type lowering of the nose by steeply banking in a series of timed cycles arriving back to the runway at just the right period in the cycle to touch down more or less normally displayed way more talent and technique than that used to build that airplane. If it'd been a jet with an ejection seat it would no longer exist.
Chris...

Re: Whatever happened to....

It's damn interesting reading the various reports and accounts of the wildfire tale, and Big Jim you are very right, it seems to very much be a us v everyone tale.. It would be interesting to hear from the likes of Dave Morss, Matt Jackson, and i think Skip Holm was involved at some point as well.