No, no, not Dago and/or September Fury

[Big_Jim]

Re: No, no, not Dago and/or September Fury

Dago never in its life had 400 lbs. of bondo on it\'s airframe.That would be what? 50 gals. of bondo. The wing had a lot of paint on it and now they have lost the profile that the wing had. I don\'t think the airplane will ever be as good as it was, if it ever races again.

Even so, have you ever lifted a gallon of bondo? Heavy stuff. So removing that, and 25 years worth of paint would be a lot of stuff to take off.

I\'m not so sure that it won\'t ever be as good as it was. Look at a certain purple Mustang this year. Back in 1998, Poodoo got the bondo treatment by Tiger. Anyone who looked at the \'profiling\' that was done at that time knows just how much weight was added. A couple years ago, Button had the wing stripped and re-painted. It\'s got \'some\' bondo on it, but it\'s not profiled. And it turned it\'s fastest laps ever last weekend.

Plus, as my friend Bill Johnson once said about Darryl Greenamyer, \"He would be competitive in a P-26.\" I think the same applies to Skip. He\'s one of those pilots that adds about 10-15 mph just because of his abilities.

[Smee Again]

Re: No, no, not Dago and/or September Fury

Even so, have you ever lifted a gallon of bondo? Heavy stuff. So removing that, and 25 years worth of paint would be a lot of stuff to take off.

I\'m not so sure that it won\'t ever be as good as it was. Look at a certain purple Mustang this year. Back in 1998, Poodoo got the bondo treatment by Tiger. Anyone who looked at the \'profiling\' that was done at that time knows just how much weight was added. A couple years ago, Button had the wing stripped and re-painted. It\'s got \'some\' bondo on it, but it\'s not profiled. And it turned it\'s fastest laps ever last weekend.

Plus, as my friend Bill Johnson once said about Darryl Greenamyer, \"He would be competitive in a P-26.\" I think the same applies to Skip. He\'s one of those pilots that adds about 10-15 mph just because of his abilities.

Trust me, MRE has probably done more bondo work in the past year than most body shops will in a lifetime. The man knows bondo.

I'm not sure I understand the relevence of your Voodoo/Dago analogy. Are you saying that Voodoo was so fast in 2009 because she had shed the weight penalty of having profiled wings? I highly doubt that. Despite the speeds Voodoo ran this year, she would still be considerably faster with correctly profiled wings. No question. Dago as well. The key will be recreating that magic 500+ MPH profile that Dago once had and Strega currently has. As fast as Voodoo is in her current configuration, she's still 10-15 MPH slower than Strega, regardless of the stick actuator.

Bring on the bondo...

SA

[BJH]

Re: No, no, not Dago and/or September Fury

Plus, as my friend Bill Johnson once said about Darryl Greenamyer, \"He would be competitive in a P-26.\" I think the same applies to Skip. He\'s one of those pilots that adds about 10-15 mph just because of his abilities.[/QUOTE]


C'mon. Skip is good, but I don't think he is 10-15 MPH better than the other unlimited sticks out there.

[Stevo]

Re: No, no, not Dago and/or September Fury

How much weight has Dago lost? It's right there on their website...
"As the bondo was stripped away we discovered more paint, under that was more bondo, then micro, then paint, then bondo for a total of 11 coats in all. ... She has lost over a 100 lbs already with maybe 40 or so more to go."

[Hans Oberev]

Re: No, no, not Dago and/or September Fury

Educate us. Wing profile vs bondo weight? Hopefully the guys at DR have factored this in! Voodoo is close to being a serious threat to DR and Rare Bear. Where will they find the extra 10mph, in the engine or aero package?

[bflynt]

Re: No, no, not Dago and/or September Fury

We can all debate the merits of shape vs. weight but I did the math to find out for sure.

In short:
The aerodynamic efficiency gained from changing the shape of the wing well out ways the penalty from the added weight.

According to the AIAA paper (AIAA-2006-48) Dago Red runs with a lift coefficient around 0.1. If we add 400 lbs that goes up to 1.0667 to stay in flight. The added induced drag from the change in lift coefficient is about 14 drag counts. The paper shows the new wing profile drops the drag count by 30 at max speed. So in summary.

Cd_stock = 0.0132
Cd_mod = 0.0116 (with new profile + 400lbs)

where:
Cd = Coefficient of Drag

Bryan

P.S. I'm not sure if the profile on the wing used to match the profile in the paper.

[bruce lockwood]

Re: No, no, not Dago and/or September Fury

30-40 gals of bond were original applied/reapplied by the master sculptor Tony Corbo, though a good portion of that was removed judging by the pile of dust swept up by the crew. This was in the 1995-1999 period. I believe Terry and crew only touched up the Bondo and repainted from that point forward.

The Bondo was used to cover a few of the sheet metal flaws in Dago's wings, specifically the high spot that runs span wise just aft of the main wing spar and the flat area of skin covering the gun bays. The fillets and fuselage and aft flight surfaces were also Bondoed

The airplane was put on jacks to load the wing and the airfoil was blue printed to the high point and the low points filled up to complete the profiling. The gear was aslo retracted and the gear doors matched to the wing airfoil with bondo. All art work and paint strips were removed from the gear doors/wing as the paint lines tripped the laminar flow.

I took what I had learned from Ray Cote and the Formula 1 people and we applied that to the airframe. "Look for every 1/4 MPH" Ray used to say.

I never viewed weight as an issue with Dago (to a point). It can actually be used as a benefit on the start, as it is Kinetic Energy, and on the long down hill start towards Pylon 4 gets you up to speed faster. Contrary to what people think, once released on the start and the throttle applied, there is no real sense of acceleration just more noise and vibration and a steady increase in speed.

Bruce

[Red]

Re: No, no, not Dago and/or September Fury

Educate us. Wing profile vs bondo weight? Hopefully the guys at DR have factored this in! Voodoo is close to being a serious threat to DR and Rare Bear. Where will they find the extra 10mph, in the engine or aero package?

Close? Any other year and Voodoo's speed was enough to in. Strega just flat whipped the field. It's not a 480 mph race anymore!

[T. Adams]

Re: No, no, not Dago and/or September Fury

Voodoo can use a lot of aero cleanup, just check out how bad the race canopy fits.

[MRE]

Re: No, no, not Dago and/or September Fury

Dan always said that the airplane went like hell downhill! I profiled the gear doors under the watchfull eye of T.Corbo when the airplane was in Hollister getting it's first Dwight engine. Was that 96? We were very careful not to change the profile on the wing after having the tanks out this year. The airplane would have been stunning if we could have finished it. Oh well.

[Smee Again]

Re: No, no, not Dago and/or September Fury

Dan always said that the airplane went like hell downhill! I profiled the gear doors under the watchfull eye of T.Corbo when the airplane was in Hollister getting it's first Dwight engine. Was that 96? We were very careful not to change the profile on the wing after having the tanks out this year. The airplane would have been stunning if we could have finished it. Oh well.

So you're saying David Price's 490+ speed in '96 was a direct result of your bondo work? Yea, right! Get the f*#@ away from me!!!

SA

[AirDOGGe]

Re: No, no, not Dago and/or September Fury

Would the extra weight have a negative effect in the turns pulling gee? I would think it would create more drag, though I don't know how much.


The comment about extra weight helping gain speed at the start is interesting. I wonder if it would be legal to carry water ballast at the beginning , then dump it as you approach the first turn. Anything in the rules about that?

[flyingjibus]

Re: No, no, not Dago and/or September Fury

The comment about extra weight helping gain speed at the start is interesting. I wonder if it would be legal to carry water ballast at the beginning , then dump it as you approach the first turn. Anything in the rules about that?

If you carried it in drop tanks I think the added drag would cancel it out.

If it was carried internally I dont think you could jettison it fast enough to not have it work against you after the start.

There is something ratteling around in my brain from physics class about inertia, constants of mass and Newtons laws that I think would also prevent this from being more benificial then harmfull but It has been too long...

It also sounds dangerous.

But I like the outside of the box thinking.

[Mluvara]

Re: No, no, not Dago and/or September Fury

If you carried it in drop tanks I think the added drag would cancel it out.

If it was carried internally I dont think you could jettison it fast enough to not have it work against you after the start.

There is something ratteling around in my brain from physics class about inertia, constants of mass and Newtons laws that I think would also prevent this from being more benificial then harmfull but It has been too long...

It also sounds dangerous.

But I like the outside of the box thinking.

One other thing to comprehend- Racers are already getting lighter with each lap as they consume fuel and spraybar/adi fluids.... The come back considerably lighter than when they started the race.

Michael

[stuntflyr]

Re: No, no, not Dago and/or September Fury

I have heard said that the filler and paint was removed to disassemble and inspect the airframe. It will be profiled to an optimal shape when returned to flying condition.
If one is to look at the Dago Red website, it shows the airplane in pictures at Chino, and at Hollister. One will see Tony Corbo involved in the operation of disassembly and inspection.
Don't worry about it being slow...