'BUCK SHOTS'

[BuckyD]

Re: 'BUCK SHOTS'

"Mighty Mouse Merlin Motor Mustangs!"

RACE: Sunday-9/19/99-Reno NCAR-UNL Gold Final-Outer 4 Pylon-Lap 5

This B&W photo captures Bill 'Tiger' Destefani & #7-Strega leading Bruce Lockwood & #4-Dago Red closely-locked together in Gold Trophy pylon competition out on the Stead Field racecourse, in one of air racing's all-time-greatest Unlimited Class Championship barn-burner final events ever! This-'me & my shadow' duel went on for the entire 8-laps, until Strega's Mouse Merlin let-go at the end of the last lap-forcing Destefani to mayday & hand Lockwood his second consecutive UNL Gold victory.

DBD

(Happy 59th Birthday, Bruce!)

[BuckyD]

Re: 'BUCK SHOTS'

"Mr. Awesome"..!!!

Joe Kasperoff's outrageously-mind-boggling Super-K 'Frankenyak' Unlimited Class racer-
#97-"Mr. Awesome" w/veteran race pilot- Skip Holm at the controls, is captured on film during its' 9/11/88 Stead Field arrival, and while roaring down low along the W. Chute 'Valley-of-Speed' during Skip's Tues. 9/13 qualifying run (417.274-mph).

Despite its' bold but inauspicious debut at Reno '88 NCAR, and disastrous return attempt the following year, the turbo-compound R-3350 modified racer left a lasting impression upon race fans. Much contemplation & debate still continues on all the 'what-if' scenarios, regarding this particular Unlimited's real potential.

DBD

[BuckyD]

Re: 'BUCK SHOTS'

"Creative Re-cycling"......

DBD

[kiwiracefan]

Re: 'BUCK SHOTS'

"Mr. Awesome"..!!!

Joe Kasperoff's outrageously-mind-boggling Super-K 'Frankenyak' Unlimited Class racer-
#97-"Mr. Awesome" w/veteran race pilot- Skip Holm at the controls, is captured on film during its' 9/11/88 Stead Field arrival, and while roaring down low along the W. Chute 'Valley-of-Speed' during Skip's Tues. 9/13 qualifying run (417.274-mph).

Despite its' bold but inauspicious debut at Reno '88 NCAR, and disastrous return attempt the following year, the turbo-compound R-3350 modified racer left a lasting impression upon race fans. Much contemplation & debate still continues on all the 'what-if' scenarios, regarding this particular Unlimited's real potential.

DBD

Very cool pics Bucky... i do like the pics of mr awesome on the course.. they would be pretty rare..

[BuckyD]

Re: 'BUCK SHOTS'

Thanks, Kiwi. Overhead shot is of Skip's 9/11/88 arrival buzz over the ramp.

DBD

[BuckyD]

Re: 'BUCK SHOTS'

"Super Prop". . . .

DBD

[Big_Jim]

Re: 'BUCK SHOTS'

Ah yes...from the same Bill Montagne who brought you the MachBuster....the infamous "Sky Prop". Looked really bitchin' right up until the point it didn't look very bitchin' anymore. I don't think Mr. Moneybags ever recouped his money after he sued Montagne, but I bet he thanked his stars every night that he listened to his advisors and tested it in the cell before he flew it on his toy.

[Race5]

Re: 'BUCK SHOTS'

Ah yes...from the same Bill Montagne who brought you the MachBuster....the infamous "Sky Prop". Looked really bitchin' right up until the point it didn't look very bitchin' anymore. I don't think Mr. Moneybags ever recouped his money after he sued Montagne, but I bet he thanked his stars every night that he listened to his advisors and tested it in the cell before he flew it on his toy.

Stupid question time. Which aircraft was that thing supposed to go on? Sumpthin' Else?

[kiwiracefan]

Re: 'BUCK SHOTS'

Stupid question time. Which aircraft was that thing supposed to go on? Sumpthin' Else?

second and third stupid questions... what was supposed to be so super about it? and what happened in the cell?

[BuckyD]

Re: 'BUCK SHOTS'

Hey- not stupid questions at all. I'm gonna go out on a limb here & just assume my fading memory hasn't totally-failed me yet & wing it w/o digging into the archives. This was the prototype example which I believe was targeted f/installation on John Sandberg's Race #18 Tsunami, and it suffered disintegration in the test cell while under power at high revs.

A followup version was installed on Tsunami during its' last outing at Reno '91 & tried-out on the racecourse, but it failed to live up to expectations, and #18's regular airscrew was reinstalled. I'll post a couple pics of this weekend, while checking the facts f/the record...

DBD

[MRE]

Re: 'BUCK SHOTS'

I'm suprised it didn't break apart on the trailer on the way up to Reno!

[kiwiracefan]

Re: 'BUCK SHOTS'

Hey- not stupid questions at all. I'm gonna go out on a limb here & just assume my fading memory hasn't totally-failed me yet & wing it w/o digging into the archives. This was the prototype example which I believe was targeted f/installation on John Sandberg's Race #18 Tsunami, and it suffered disintegration in the test cell while under power at high revs.

A followup version was installed on Tsunami during its' last outing at Reno '91 & tried-out on the racecourse, but it failed to live up to expectations, and #18's regular airscrew was reinstalled. I'll post a couple pics of this weekend, while checking the facts f/the record...

DBD

ahhh ok, so this was the composite prop that was meant to be super efficient.. i did read of a prop for tsunami destroying itself on the stand.

[Big_Jim]

Re: 'BUCK SHOTS'

Yes, Jack bought the Sky Prop to use on Tsunami. It was an attempt to get a more efficient blade that could turn faster (i.e. higher RPM's) without going supersonic (i.e. the swept leading edge),and was built out of carbon fiber with foam coring. As you can see from the photos, it had a very wide chord, giving lots of surface area--which equated to more air being pushed, and ideally more thrust at higher RPM. Bill Montagne had built it with about the same construction quality as he had the Machbuster...and anyone who saw Machbuster in person knows what that means.

PROPERLY constructed composite materials (and I speak this from first hand knowledge...having built both good parts and bad parts and having learned from the experience) will hold up pretty much under any 'operational' stress.

The Sky Prop, while it may have looked good on the outside, was not constructed well. In the aftermath they used excuses of 'crushed' foam coring, and not enough resin, or whatever....but the end result was the same. After the fact, Montagne insisted that it was only a 'prototype' or a mockup, and was 'never intended for flight'. I wonder if he told JR that beforehand...or if perhaps JR was just too lovestruck with it to 'hear' it. Didn't stop him from taking the dough from Mr. Moneybags, though....

I have a picture somewhere in my archives of the Sky Prop mounted on Tsunami in Minnesota where they are doing taxi tests with it. But whomever was left on the team (I believe Boland had recused himself from the project by this time) talked JR out of FLYING it before they tested it in a test cell.

Quite literally the first time they put power to the Merlin in the test cell, the thing self-destructed. I have a picture of THAT too...with only the composite shanks left on the hub, and the walls of the cell peppered with holes. All four blades failed at about the same time, though once the first blade knocked it all out of balance, the others were kind of doomed to fail as well.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that the 'scimitar prop' that Tsunami ran in the '91 heat races was a 'follow-up' for the Sky Prop. It was more a Rube Goldberg attempt to adapt the concept to something that already existed...i.e. sweeping the tip to keep it from going supersonic at higher RPM. I believe that used a triangular T-28 blade (not the paddle kind) similar to what Rupp ran on Old Crow/Samurai, but with the tip shaved. The concept didn't work. In fact, the only reason they 'raced' with it on Friday and Saturday of '91 is that they had oversped the regular paddle-blade unit in Qualifying/testing, and it was out being checked...so they decided to try out the shaved blade in the heats since they were locked into the Gold.

Howard Pardue tried something similar on a prop for Fury in 1994/5 and he said it slowed the plane down 10 mph.

I think it's safer to say that the 'follow-up' or rather the 'next generation' of the Sky Prop was the Tiger Claw that US Propeller Service built for Strega in 1995. I still think (and Kerch has agreed with me on this) that given enough actual testing, the Tiger Claw could have been something to be recconed with. It just turned out that Strega was still 'fast enough' with the regular cuffed-blade...so it just got pushed into the back of the hanger.

[kiwiracefan]

Re: 'BUCK SHOTS'

Big Jim... Thank you a bunch for that.. i knew there had to be someone on here who had more background on sky-prop... another damn fine read, and more info for the memory banks...
I had wondered what happened to the tiger claw prop that tiger tried

[jarrodeu]

Re: 'BUCK SHOTS'

Wow, great information!

So since Tiger I'm sure has lots of money invested in the "Tiger Claw" any chance of it getting more testing in the future?
Pictures I've seen of it looks like it's painted white, were they composite of metal?

Jarrod