What do you see when you look at that picture? And my name is Lief, not Leif, I've been battling that assumption my entire adult life.Quote:
Originally Posted by CJAM427
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What do you see when you look at that picture? And my name is Lief, not Leif, I've been battling that assumption my entire adult life.Quote:
Originally Posted by CJAM427
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Do you recall when and where that picture was taken?Quote:
Originally Posted by wingman
Reno 1997 labelled Monday from the Valley of Speed fence, late in the day, IIRC.
Whether I recall anything correctly after 24 years is, of course, open to question...
My apologies, I edited my original post. People spell my name wrong all the time as well so I know how you feel.Quote:
Originally Posted by knot4u
I don't have the intimate knowledge of the airplane like others do so I'm not certain what I should be looking for. What I see is some sort of blow-by coming from the belly, a partially open gear door and maybe some oil canning in the fuselage?
Neal says that photo was taken in the valley on monday of the '97 races. That was the year Lyle got back into flying the airplane, I don't know if John Penney or Lyle were in the airplane when that picture was taken, it was a long time ago. Most of your observations are correct, except the blow-by from the oil cooler exit, it should've been a waterfall of steam, and all of that oil was normal (the first time I ever saw the airplane in person it hadn't had an engine mounted on it for over two years and it was still leaking oil). My concern has more to do with the control surface deflections on the elevators and rudder and the trim tab positions.Quote:
Originally Posted by CJAM427
Edit: I forgot to mention the pocket door hanging open, an open gear door was a bad deal for that airplane. We had issues trying to find sector gears for them, I suspect the repeated higher speeds put loads on them they weren't designed for. I know the Bearcat had a gear issue a few years after I left but I've always wondered if that might've been a contributing factor.
Interesting... If the Valley of Speed he'd be somewhat straight and level, and pulling minimal Gs. That does seem like a considerale amount of up elevator and aileron deflection. What is that thin stream of vapor coming straight out at 90 degrees from the fuselage? That's not the oil cooler exit you're talking about, is it? I have a couple other shots from that session -- one shows the stream and one seems not to.
Neal
The wing root intakes fed air to the oil cooler, and fed the carburetor, there was a big hole in the belly to let the oil cooler air exit (it has to go somewhere otherwise it would just create drag). The spay bar water nozzles were obviously just above the oil cooler, and the water would exit with the fresh air hopefully cooling down the air/oil heat exchanger as it changed from a liquid to a gas, cooling the air and oil in the process. Lot's of people way smarter than me had figured out how to do this long before I ever knew what a Bearcat was. Regarding the pissing of water out of the belly it looks like the spray bars weren't putting out the volume. There might be a few reasons for that but at this point I have no idea why, it should've been a trail of steam behind it like we've seen in some of the recent Dreadnought pictures posted here. The aileron position isn't disconcerting.Quote:
Originally Posted by wingman
Edit: The visible flame coming out of the exhaust doesn't give me the warm fuzzies. I wonder if this picture might have been taken at a moment when whoever was flying it might have been pulling off the course for reasons we don't know.
Would you mind posting the other images?Quote:
Originally Posted by wingman
Wonder if that shot just happened to catch the Bear as it started to roll into pylon 7-8-9.