The terrain is unremittingly flat, the roads checkerboard at right angles, and farming is what matters. Irrigation ditches and muddy tracks entering and then tapering off on the county roads are too numerous to notice, and the vastness in the crop rows and vault of open sky keeps human activity properly scaled inside nature’s expanse.

But it is California. The land work is mainly agribusiness, row crops defer to orchards of nut and fruit trees, and corn is something that happens elsewhere. Those majestic peaks suggest things aren’t the same everywhere while State Route 99 rumbles and roars its endless nose-to-tail hustle of tractor-trailers and passenger cars traversing the world’s fifth-largest economy.

A couple miles from that highway an industrial park sprawls before giving way to the main business of California’s central valley. And there, sandwiched between a multiacre pallet manufacturer and pump specialists, an unremarkable cluster of single-story metal buildings and open yards make up the Ly-Con Aircraft Engines huddle.

• READ MORE: GE Aerospace on the Hunt for Engineering Talent

One is tempted to say “campus” to describe this jumble of buildings, yards, shipping containers, and open-air pallet racking stacked with tired aviation hardware, but the connotation is too collegiate. Likewise, “village” is too visually congenial and hamlet dismissive of the overpowering mechanical nature of the place. But if the correct label is elusive, there’s no doubt exceptional general aviation engines emerge from here.

‘Tunnell’ Vision

Central to the Ly-Con story is founder Ken Tunnell, a native of the next big farming town down the road, Porterville. Just 23 years old and starting to settle from a rambunctious youth along with a three-year stint in the Marine Corps, Ken had already been working in a five-man aviation engine shop when in March 1980 he thought he could do better by opening his own place.

His dad borrowed against his modest retirement to purchase a few basic machine tools in exchange for a stake in the business, and married-with-a-mortgage friend Bruce Bennet came on board three months later when Ken was sufficiently established to afford employee insurance. Ken recalls Bruce as a great engine guy, but he left Ly-Con after a couple of years to pursue his own interests.

In the beginning Ken says Ly-Con was like everyone else in that it would take new parts out of the box and start assembling engines. But as the engine count grew, Ken realized new parts weren’t always perfect—or even correct—and customer comebacks didn’t make them happy or make money.

And so the Ly-Con obsession with measuring, verifying, and accurate machining began. This now 44-year fascination with improvement through better processes and tools has been Ly-Con’s hallmark and the main generator of its worldwide reputation for dependable, powerful engines.

It’s likely the dogged zeitgeist of the place has been set by its geography. Visalia and Porterville are successful, somewhat isolated farming towns. Getting up in the morning and getting to work is native to the area, as is the resolve to use the best tools at hand and to get better ones tomorrow. Ken and his 36 employees are all salt of the earth, typically self-taught but ready to work and willing to try something new or learn from others. Their methods are empirical, and if there’s not a single engineering diploma hanging on the office walls—or a pilot’s certificate in anyone’s wallet—there are a hundred signed photos from pleased customers showing off every sort of flat-engined airplane winging via Ly-Con power.

• READ MORE: Boeing to Open New Engineering Facility at Embry-Riddle

A textbook definition of a mom-and-pop store, Ly-Con remains Ken Tunnell’s fiefdom, with just wife Darla (accounting) and brother Bryan (racing shop) also involved. There’s the efficiency of a benevolent dictatorship in the arrangement but also the bottleneck of everything going across Ken’s paper-covered desk. As the business has grown, so have the responsibilities, including the impedimenta associated with FAA Repair Station status and doing business in the Golden State. Ken and Darla have been at the shop seven days a week forever, and if there is a complaint from the field, it’s that Ly-Con is a slow shop, a place where engines languish and getting Ken on the phone is tough to do.

It’s tough because there is so much to attend to, and once you get Ken on the line, he tends to stay there until things are fully settled. He isn’t one to cut corners, and projects can pile up. He says most of the caterwauling is from customers hoping to speed up things, but dawdling on the payment continuum or from pilgrims thinking engine shops keep rebuilt engines on the shelf waiting to go. With an average turnaround time of eight months, the reality is Ly-Con’s delivery schedule compares well with the year or years now common from the OEMs.

Early On

Today, Ly-Con is noted as a horizontally opposed specialist with a strong sideline on performance engines, but those are learned behaviors.

“When we first started, we did [Pratt & Whitney] 1340s and 985s due to crop dusting around the valley,” recalls Ken. “But it was 250 man hours to do a radial and 40 hours to do a flat motor, and you made about the same money. So we started leaning toward flat engines and away from radials. But we did some [Warner] Scarabs and Franklins before they all faded away.”

One niche picked up via Bob Penland was helicopter engines.

“He taught us the VO (helicopter) engines,” Ken says. “Penland in Long Beach was the helo king in those days. We still do 435s, 540s, and all that stuff…We still build ’em for helos all around the world—Germany, Canada, New Zealand. People are scared of ’em, but if you do a good job, they’re a really durable engine.” He adds with a grin, “Unless you don’t have a prop governor and overspeed ’em!”

• READ MORE: Transport Canada Awards Pratt & Whitney Engine Type Certification

In the early years Ly-Con was just one of many engine shops in the valley, so capitalizing growth in the company was difficult. Characteristically unafraid to try something different, Ken saw an opportunity when Rocky Harrow, another local machinist, ran into trouble. With the bank ready to repossess Rocky’s shop, Ken paid off the debt then moved Rocky and his entire operation, including a lathe, mill, and pantograph, into Ly-Con.

“We brought him into the shop to do machining, reground lifters, connecting rods, that sort of stuff,” Ken says. “And so I spent some of my time hustling machine shop stuff. We made helical gears for a printing press company. I got the right wire and spray welding on the gears so Rocky could go portable to fix those gears when they dropped a screw in them or something.”

Eventually Rocky left, but by then Ly-Con was established in the aviation engine scene, with good contacts and a growing customer base.

“We were on the [Visalia] airport for nine years,” says Ken, noting he made the painfully disruptive move to the company’s present industrial park location a couple of miles away in 1989.

He says he was encouraged to relocate due to a 60 percent rise in rent in just two years, along with a court order kicking them out after he disputed the rent increases.

“We almost went out of business because of the move,” he says. “We were just five people and 3,000 square feet, but it took [electrical utility] Edison a long time to put in three-phase power [and there was no money coming in the meantime.]”

Ken came to see the move off-airport as a plus.

“It was a lot cooler being on the airport, but you can’t own anything at the airport, the city owns it,” he says. “Here you can build equity in the real estate, so it was a blessing getting off the airport.”

Enter Performance

Earning competence with stock rebuilds marked Ly-Con’s start, so when Ken hooked up with Southern California speed guru Steve Mehalick, the company was ready to add performance. The pivot was John Harmon—just down the road in Bakersfield—building the first two Van’s RV-3-based Rockets.

The first used a stock Lycoming, but backer Jim Ewing wanted more horse pressure in his Rocket engine that Ly-Con was building. So Steve taught Ly-Con about porting, high compression, and other power-building tips he’d learned working with Dan Gurney, JE Pistons, Jim Fueling, and others in the extensive Southern California speed scene. Ken credits Steve’s knowledge and industry contacts with quickly pushing Ly-Con to the front ranks of performance aircraft engine builders, and it was a tough loss when Steve medically retired far too early 20 years ago.

Ly-Con’s other performance pioneer was Sean Tucker.

“We did his stuff for 43 years,” says Ken. “He was a crop duster in Salinas…He used to hock his house to get parts to do his engines.”

Sean didn’t have to hock his house forever, and Ly-Con rose up the performance ladder with his outstanding career. Other major aerobatic acts gravitated to Ly-Con’s thumping, lightweight parallel-valve AEIO-540 engines, including Jim LeRoy, Skip Stewart, and about three-quarters of the Red Bull Air Racing field until they went to spec engines from Thunderbolt to limit costs and performance.

Improving performance is catnip to Ken. He can come across as aw-shucks, but that’s just his native impishness papering over a deep competitive streak.

“I just like to have the best stuff,” he says. His attraction to the latest tools also means satisfaction in turning out no-excuse stock engines plus winning races and being the big dog on the pro airshow scene. He really doesn’t like second place.

No doubt the most visible of Ly-Con’s power habit has been air racing, with the Formula 1, Biplane, and Sport pits at Reno, Nevada, presenting an almost embarrassing array of Ly-Con stickers. Like the early Red Bull series, Ly-Con’s penetration of Formula 1 was typically more than half the field, and it was something similar in the hot-rodded Biplane class.

The Biplane efforts have been capped so far by overwhelming Ly-Con power (think almost 400 hp from a naturally aspirated IO-360) in Phantom pushing lap speeds over 260 mph. In the major-league Sport Gold division, Ly-Con provided the 580-cubic-inch foundations for class dominator Jeff LaVelle’s 410 mph Glasair III along with numerous other competitors.

All of these engines bend the status quo when it comes to power, but the 900-plus hp under LaVelle’s cowling truly stretches the imagination regarding what’s possible with the same cases and crankshafts the rest of us fly behind.

For sure, Ly-Con’s push to performance has paid dividends for all its customers. It was broken counterweight ears on the hardcore tumbling aerobatic engines that led to the cryogenic solution Ly-Con now offers. If a daily driver customer balks at the thought of 10:1 compression pistons, Ly-Con can authoritatively speak to what happens not only at 10:1 compression, but 11:1, 12:1, even 14:1 because it has built and run numerous engines at all of those power levels. Or 5.5:1 compression for turbo fans.

The same goes for about every sort of power trick imaginable because Ly-Con has firsthand experience developing those engines, along with the customer feedback plus tearing down and eyeballing the results.

In the Shop

Today Ly-Con’s 36 employees work on a 3.2-acre lot holding four buildings, two dyno cells, one vertical test stand, and several yards full of shipping containers and pallet racking containing the company’s extensive core engine collection. There are approximately 26,000 square feet under roof and 7,000 square feet of working shop space. You’ll have difficulty finding an unoccupied horizontal surface large enough to set down your coffee cup.

Collectively, the facilities support an FAA Repair Station, including engine and engine accessory overhaul. The FAA sees Ly-Con as two entities, one repairing and building certified engines, which makes up about 70 percent of the overall business, plus the experimental engine work making up the remaining 30 percent.

The certified and experimental work pass through the same workstations—that is, there is no separate building or shop dedicated to either class of engines—but the parts, processes, and paperwork are carefully segregated to ensure compliance.

Organizationally there is the business office, teardown, cleaning, inspection, painting and coating, welding, porting, cryogenic, case, accessory, assembly, dyno and shipping shops or stations.

The parts department is its own business—Kendra Air Parts Inc.—but located with the rest of Ly-Con. There’s a room dedicated to Ly-Con’s proprietary line of NFS pistons too.

You could also say manufacturing is a Ly-Con subset as it makes its own adjustable oil pressure regulators and dabbles with custom valve covers and other miscellaneous parts, but this work slots in among the regular jobs. The same might be said about the more experimental work, such as flow testing cylinder heads or trying new coatings, but again those workstations are shared with the mainstream certified efforts.

The Machine Age

Consistently adding new machining and testing capabilities means Ly-Con reached the usual level of in-house capabilities long ago.

Those few specialized machining steps—crank grinding and machining engine cases are good examples—are or were farmed out to specialists just like every other engine builder. With the basics covered, Ly-Con eventually moved into unusual capabilities rarely offered by an aircraft engine builder, mainly driven by its need to step up its experimental engines as the aerobatic and racing customers asked for more power or ran into longevity issues.

One of the first of these was a wet flow bench for flowing carburetors and fuel injection parts but also key to developing cylinder head ports. By adding on to a commercially available automotive performance flow bench designed to move just air, the fuel bench does the same task but while flowing air and solvent. The combination fuel and flow benches have been educational as carburetors, injection, and cylinder heads got tuned up for racing, as well as serving as a great calibration tool for verifying performance of stock parts for certified applications. Originally built with analog instruments, the fuel bench was later upgraded to digital data acquisition and remains in daily use.

A fundamental part of engine building is improving the ring seal between the cylinder walls and piston rings. This has always been a sloppy thing in big-bore, air-cooled airplane engines—it’s the nature of these beasts—but Ken Tunnell has always been improving ring seal both to increase engine power and reduce oil consumption, along with speeding engine break-in and thus avoid oil-slurping during the engine’s entire lifespan. Key to this is precision in honing the cylinder bores along with experimenting with piston ring material. 

Building so many racing and aerobatic engines gives Ken the opportunity to continuously try different ring/bore combinations, and making some rather large investments in the latest cylinder hones has allowed improving the cylinder finish and chokes. For decades a Sunnen CV-616 hone has been swirling out the cylinders at Ly-Con, but after reaching the limits of that machine on the latest experimental jugs, a new Rottler automated hone was added. That’s a six-figure investment, but Ken needed it for the increased precision, plus, as an automated machine, it will speed cylinder production throughout Ly-Con’s workflow.

Sixteen years ago when Ly-Con wanted to improve crankcase parting-line sealing by replacing the stock sewing thread method with a rubber O-ring set in a machined groove, it needed the hugely increased precision and speed of an automated milling machine for this complex tool path. That meant funding the purchase of a 20 hp CNC machining center, a first in aviation engine rebuilding. Of course, the five-axis Haas Automation CNC mill has since improved or supported all sorts of tasks previously done manually or not at all.

Another unique Ly-Con capability is cryogenic heat treating. This is the use of liquid nitrogen to chill parts to minus-305 degrees Fahrenheit then heating them to 300 F before bringing them back to room temperature. It normalizes the crystalline structure of metal (and other materials) and has proven a godsend in strengthening crankshafts in high-power engines. With “cryo” proving useful throughout an engine, Ken bought out an entire cryo facility and set it up inside Ly-Con. It’s proven popular with performance customers and suggests the way to greater longevity on stock builds as well.

Another big plus are the two engine dynos.

These have been upgraded over the years with good data acquisition systems offering major benefits. First, customers have objective data on how their engine runs, the engines are delivered leak-free and fully vetted as to function along with being well along the critical break-in period. Furthermore, the dynos prove whatever was done in the shop.

Especially for the experimental engines, the dynos close an essential feedback loop on what works or doesn’t when improving engine builds. Having just brought both dynos to identical specification and data capabilities has sped workflow as it’s no longer necessary to wait for one or the other dyno to open up for a specific testing need.

Increasingly coming on line at Ly-Con is a small shop dedicated to servicing engine cases. This is unique for an engine builder because, as long as anyone can remember, case align boring has been the private domain of Nixon on the West Coast and, especially, Divco, in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

But now Ly-Con has purchased its own align boring machine, along with a smaller CNC center and repurposed mills for various supporting tasks, allowing full servicing of engine crankcases for its in-house needs (no one in Visalia is out to corner the market on case rebuilding). This case shop is still new and developing its working protocols, but it’s primarily designed to give Ly-Con more control over this critical aspect of engine building and hopefully a small gain in profit margin eventually.

The latest gizmo is a laser welder in the welding shop. Barely unpacked during our visit, the welder promises to allow heretofore impossible aluminum repairs, but that’s something still theoretical. Like many of the ideas Ly-Con has brought to fruition as FAA-approved processes, laser welding is something the Visalia team will practice with on scrap parts, and if those work, it will move to dyno testing, followed by use on experimental engines run by trusted customers willing to try something new.

Applying for a process approval for certified engines remains well in the future, assuming it even works and makes business sense. If it doesn’t, it won’t be the first time what sounded like a great idea didn’t pan out.

Basics First

While Ly-Con is well known for its innovation and performance successes, sometimes Ken Tunnell laments the shop is perceived as something out of left field, a place for wild experimental engines, when the reality is its livelihood is dependable daily driver overhauls, inspections, IRANs, prop strikes, and all the other work found in the certified world. It’s understandable as racing garners much publicity—and hardly any income considering the work and sponsorships involved—while the certified overhauls are the true work but take place in relative obscurity.

In reality the performance and certified work is complementary. Racing has improved the breed, the lessons learned around the pylons or in front of the airshow crowds inevitably finding good employment in the certified world. Ultimately building great performance engines—and daily drivers—is all about making the flat parts really flat and the round parts really round. There are no secrets, just a will to best understand the engine’s needs and a near slavish adherence to eliminating oversights through constant checking.

In the end that’s really what goes on at Ly-Con.

This feature first appeared in the Summer 2024 Ultimate Issue print edition.

The post Ultimate Issue: Ly-Con Still Going Strong appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

According to the Reno Air Racing Association (RARA), the event will feature performances of both U.S. Navy Blue Angels and the Canadian Forces Snowbirds, along with the U.S. Air Force F-16 Viper Demo Team. A list of other planned performances may be found here. 

• READ MORE: Taking in the Reno Air Races’ Final Lap

The event, which is sponsored by the RARA, will begin with an airshow Friday night (October 4), and there will be many static displays of both civilian and military aircraft, and a STEM discovery zone.

“This year’s airshow celebrates our aviation heritage and the boundless potential for the future ahead,” said Fred Telling, RARA CEO and chairman. “We are honored to have made Reno the home of air racing over the last six decades. While we look forward to our organization’s future in air racing. This year, we welcome fans to enjoy an airshow that draws from experiences at the National Championship Air Races to create a one-of-a-kind event.”

• READ MORE: Early Analysis of Fatal Reno Accident Offers Lessons

This year marks the first time in the annual Reno aviation event’s history that air racing will not be featured. In September, the last Reno Air Race took place at KRTS, as community leaders had determined that encroachment by homes and other non-race entities were creating too much of a risk. The last races of that event were canceled after two pilots died in a midair collision.

RARA is reviewing proposals from six cities interested in hosting the National Championship Air Races next year. The organization expects to announce the new location later this spring.

• READ MORE: Three Locations Vie for National Championship Air Races

“We are so thankful for our fans and community that have supported us over the decades,” said Tony Logoteta, RARA chief operating officer. “And we are excited to produce our 60th aviation event in Reno. We will miss racing this year but have been blessed with an incredible performer lineup and are hard at work to ensure the Reno Air Show provides a unique and exhilarating experience that also celebrates our history.”

More information about the 2024 event and ticket sales may be found here.

The post Airshow Plans Advance in Reno appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Coraggio’s first introduction to airpark living came in college during a time when he was starting his aviation industry career. As soon as he graduated from the University of Minnesota, he began working on and flying experimental airplanes. Last summer was transformative for him as an engineer and aviator. 

“I went to an aviation internship the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college, which was intended to bridge the gap between the theory that they teach in engineering school and the practical side, actually being able to build, machine, weld, do composite layups, and things like that,” said Corragio. “Dick Keyt [with whom Coraggio completed the internship] has been a major mentor in my aviation career, both professional and recreational. I lived at an airpark, Pecan Plantation (0TX1) in Granbury, Texas, during that summer. Being there absolutely cemented the idea in my head that the coolest thing in the world that you can ever do is live with your airplane and be able to roll out of bed, fall down the stairs, make a cup of coffee, and be in the workshop in three minutes.” 

Coraggio and his spouse, Kevin James, purchased their home at Stellar Airpark last February. The residence checked the box for the duo, as the neighborhood is centered around a 4,417-foot-long asphalt runway and smack dab in the middle of the Greater  Phoenix area. 

“The biggest thing for the two of us was that I’m only home 15 days a month with my airline schedule usually, so I don’t mind if I’m far away from the city [as far as] things to do,” Coraggio said. “But the thing with Stellar is you are literally 1 mile away from a mall and restaurants. You are 15 minutes to downtown Phoenix, 15 minutes to Old Town Scottsdale, and 15 minutes to Sky Harbor Airport (KPHX). It’s a rarity to have an airpark with a major metropolitan area nearby with entertainment, shopping, and all of the conveniences nearby.”  

It may be tempting to justify living at an airpark with different means of rationalization. At the end of the day, though, the decision to move to a fly-in community is often based on personal feeling rather than reason. 

“When I was trying to make an argument to move to an airpark, I would say, ‘Well, I can get rid of 25 minutes of driving each way to the airport. I can be at least 50 minutes more productive every day I go out to the airport,’” Coraggio said. “It felt as if I was trying to justify a move to an airpark to myself and Kevin. Turns out that my justifications and rationalizations were actually underselling it. There is a compounding effect on motivation and productivity by saving time driving, being immersed in a community that values and shares my hobby, and continually having my projects in sight.”

Coraggio’s commute has been traded for time with a wrench or behind the yoke. Another noticeable difference is his neighbors. 

“The cool part about aviation, in general, and airparks even more so, is that everybody has some kind of common interest,” he said. “Even though we’re right in the middle of a big town, it gives [off] that small town feel. I can’t tell you how many people stop by when the hangar doors are open to check in on what you’re doing and how many friends I’ve been able to make through those conversations. And they’re not the kind of friends that are just acquaintances by name only.”

These friends also have been supportive of Coraggio’s passion for air racing, as he competes at various events under his team name of Ramp Rat Racing. 

“From the very first day that we moved in, I started working on my airplanes in the hangars before the workshops were set up,” he said. “The amount of work that we accomplished on the [Lancair] Legacy this year is what allowed us to reach all four of our [racing] goals. From February to June, which is when PRS (Pylon Racing Seminar) happens, we installed a revised electrical system architecture, new induction, new fuel injection, ignition system, some cooling enhancements, a water spray bar system, and some drag reduction.” 

Coraggio’s new neighbors helped him out with a variety of tasks in preparation for the 2023 National Championship Air Races in Reno, Nevada. A notable result of all that hard work in the hangar was a personal-best speed of 317.862 mph, 36 mph faster than his attempt the previous year. 

“We were going to get delayed in our project because we were missing a specific nut,” he said. “A neighbor was like, ‘Well, let me go and see if I can go find one of those.’ And he goes off to his hangar, scurries around and finds six of them so we can replace them all, instead of [just] the one that was damaged. Can I replace them for you?’ I asked. ‘Oh, no, I’ve got plenty of those.’ That kind of experience is what makes this such a great place.”

Before living at Stellar, Coraggio had kept his aircraft in three hangars at Deer Valley Airport (KDVT) in Phoenix. Now, they sit in two hangars on his Stellar Airpark property, totaling 5,000 square feet. 

He pointed out that flexibility is another positive of living at an airpark.

“[You can] choose what you have space for versus having to [find] space when you are trying to buy something,” Coraggio said. “If you’re trying to buy an airplane and can’t find a hangar, you might choose not to buy the airplane. If you live at home, you can find a way of making it work instead of having to wait 20 years for a hangar in some of the airports in the Valley.”

Even though Coraggio had previous experience living at an airpark, albeit temporarily several decades ago, there was something that amazed him about moving to Stellar Airpark.

“I think the biggest surprise to me is how little I want to leave,” he said. “And I’ve never been a morning person in my life, ever. But ever since we moved in here, I wake up at 6:30 or 7 o’clock in the morning, which some people laugh at as being morning or early morning. I’m motivated to get my day started early now because I’ve got something exciting to do that really gets my juices flowing that’s right here. If your hangar is at home, you can find a way.”

The post Passion Projects and Ramp Rat Racing at Arizona’s Stellar Airpark appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Following the race, Dowd was riding a wave of gratification, knowing he had at least set a record for aircraft powered by the Pratt & Whitney R1830 Twin Wasp engine, sourced from a Douglas DC-3. “That was the fastest that engine has ever gone,” he says. And while he is not the type to mention it, his Yak—named Lilya, for Russian wartime fighter pilot hero Lilya Litvyak—made the rest of the field, all North American P-51 Mustangs with legendary Rolls-Royce Merlin engines, look slow.

Racing Costs Money and Time

After returning to Syracuse, Kansas, Dowd began working on improvements that he believed would push the airplane past 400 mph, which would almost certainly be fast enough to crack the Gold race, though probably not enough to win it. You can expect only so much improvement in performance year to year, especially when you are on a budget. Besides, Dowd, who has racing experience at Reno dating back to the 1970s, had difficulty finding time to work on his race airplanes.

“You wind up with a list of ‘wanna dos’ and ‘gotta dos,’ and in my case my spraying planes always were the priority,” he says of the aerial application business he owned for decades. “My farmers had to come first.”

Dowd did not return to Reno until last year, but after problems getting Lilya ready, he brought a P-51A called Shanty Irish, with which he won Silver again, flying very smoothly and very low, even by Reno standards. Though fans loved the P-51A, Dowd felt the Yak had more winning potential. Besides, he has never really enjoyed flying P-51s. While they might appear smooth and graceful rounding the pylons, the experience in the cockpit feels like drudgery. “It’s like driving a truck around the course—a lot of work.” The Yak, he says, is simply easier to fly.

Sometimes, Less Is More

There were several additional reasons Dowd chose the Yak over the P-51. First, it is smaller than the P-51s, Grumman Bearcats, and Hawker Sea Furies that make up most of the competitive air racing field. This basic trait tends to equate to a smaller budget required.

Probably the most significant advantage related to the Yak’s size is that it does not need an enormous engine in order to go fast. Dowd’s airplane won the Silver in 2016 at 376 mph using the Pratt & Whitney R1830 Twin Wasp—and it was tiny among the air-cooled radials typically found at Reno, including Pratt & Whitney R2800s and R4360s, and Wright R3350s.

There are engine people and airframe people among those who race at Reno. While the groups overlap, some tend to turn to more powerful engines when they need more speed. Others look for ways to make airframes lighter and more aerodynamic. “A race-prepared Merlin is going to cost you $300,000, overhauling a 3350 is about $250,000, and an R2000 overhaul is closer to $125,000,” Dowd says. A smaller engine is more economical, though not exactly cheap. “You quickly find that it can be cheaper to focus on airframe modifications.”

Dowd also has the advantage of being an aeronautical engineer by training. For decades he has spent winters performing intensive maintenance on his agricultural aircraft—and occasionally squeezing in racing projects—in his well-equipped shop.

How It Is Done

After acquiring the Yak in 2010, Dowd went through it carefully, rebuilding and replacing numerous parts that were broken, worn, or just not working properly. Over the next few years, he overhauled the engine, balanced control surfaces, and began redesigning some of the aircraft’s internal electrical and mechanical systems. Mostly, though, he sought to clean up the machine aerodynamically.

Most World War II aircraft, even those famous for high top speeds like the Mustang, really were designed to fly at 250 mph or so—or about how fast you fly when escorting bombers to their targets. The incidence settings of the horizontal stabilizer would reflect this, so these aircraft generally trim out easily to fly at that speed, or roughly half the pace required for the Gold.

This is why racing airplanes often have to use lots of trim to keep the nose down when approaching 500 mph. Sometimes the resulting aerodynamic pressure is rough enough to tear the trim tabs off the elevators. An elevator trim tab lost in this manner was named as a contributing factor in the crash of race pilot Jimmy Leeward’s P-51 Galloping Ghost at Reno in 2011. The accident killed Leeward and 10 spectators, while an additional 70 were injured by flying shrapnel when the airplane nose-dived into the ground and disintegrated. The stakes at Reno are high.

Getting his Mustang to fly fast meant Dowd had to reset the angle of its horizontal stabilizer and remove an offset built into the vertical fin to counter engine torque. Doing so significantly reduced “trim drag.” Curiously, the Yak flies fine at race speed without changes to the tail.

Spinner Afterbody

One of the modifications that makes Dowd’s Yak stand out is barely visible. It is a fiberglass fairing called a spinner afterbody. Like most radial-powered racers, the Yak uses a large-diameter propeller spinner to cover much of the engine cowling’s frontal area to improve aerodynamics. This arrangement leaves a narrow opening between the cowling and the spinner for cooling air to reach the engine.

As the air accelerates, it moves around the spinner and into the cowling. The void behind the spinner causes turbulence and pressure to build, causing drag. Dowd’s spinner afterbody, which he designed, is almost a mirror image of the spinner. The fairing matches the large diameter at the back of the spinner and narrows to a smaller diameter as it reaches the engine crankcase to which it is attached.

As a result, air flowing over the spinner continues smoothly across the fairing, expanding and decelerating to more efficiently cool the engine while reducing turbulence and drag. This is the kind of device aeronautical engineers dream up. It may not look like much, but the afterbody is effective, Dowd says. “It’s good for an extra 20 mph.”

Other racers took note, especially Dowd’s friend and longtime rival, Sam Davis, who flies a similar Yak, Miss Trinidad, and is known for his skill at fabricating custom aircraft exhaust systems. Dowd was sure that a set of Davis’ custom pipes would add even more speed to his Yak, which still had its original, inefficient exhaust system.

• READ MORE: Expanding the Campaign at Reno

Making Deals

“When I asked Sam about making the exhaust, he said he would do it, but he wanted me to make a fairing for him in exchange,” Dowd says. While giving that much help to a competitor might seem strange, it is the way things go in the air racing community. Pilots often take a year off from the sport to help rivals prepare their aircraft or join their race-day pit crew. Sometimes they even fly for them. In addition to supplying the spinner fairing, Davis proposed that Dowd fly Miss Trinidad for him as well. These are the types of deals that racers make all the time.

Davis, based in Corona, California, has been working steadily on Miss Trinidad for weeks, including the installation of Dowd’s fiberglass fairing. The airplane is based at Chino Airport (KCNO), home of the Planes of Fame Air Museum and Fighter Rebuilders, an operation that restores warbirds and prepares numerous racing aircraft for competition.

Recently, John Maloney, a longtime racer, film pilot, and son of Ed Maloney, who founded the museum and restoration businesses, test-flew Davis’ Yak and deemed it ready to race. Well, almost. The aircraft is at least ready to begin the process of countless tweaks, fine-tuning, and practice flying necessary for a good run at Reno.

In an interesting twist, Maloney has even offered to fly Miss Trinidad at Reno, possibly bumping Dowd to reserve-pilot status. “It’s fine. Johnny is one of the best sticks I know,” Dowd says, noting that he is often happier working with the crew than flying the airplane. “I’ll be there with all of my tools.”

This story first appeared in the September 2023/Issue 941 of FLYING’s print edition.

The post The Intricacies of Getting Ready for Reno appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

In 1964, Lacy was a demonstration pilot for Pacific Learjet, and he flew one of the first Learjet 24s into Van Nuys, California (KVNY), an airport that would become identified with him over the years—from the Air National Guard, to the charter company that he founded there in 1968, to the movie One Six Right, released in 2005, which capped his career as an actor and photo pilot. Lacy helped develop the Astrovision camera system mounted on Learjets and others. With it, he filmed for Bombardier, Boeing, and Lear, as well as other manufacturers, not only for marketing efforts but also flight test segments. Film credits for the Astrovision system include Flight of the Intruder, The Great Santini, Armageddon, and Top Gun.

Lacy raced airplanes as a passion, and served as president of the Air Racing Association from 1966 to 1970. He won the Unlimited category at the National Air Races at Reno in the stunning purple P-51 Mustang, Miss Van Nuys, he owned for many years. In 2010, he received the FAA Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award and was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame.

Now, Lacy continues to give back, just as he always has over his career. Today, he’s working with the Aviation Youth Mentoring Program (AYMP, www.aymp.world), a women-owned and child-centered nonprofit committed to involving and inspiring underserved communities through aviation. AYMP students had the privilege to meet Lacy in person at the Van Nuys airport and learn what it takes to be an aviator. Through the Clay Lacy AYMP Flight Scholarship, Lacy has funded 12 students in 2023 for their private pilot certificates, and aviation management and/or aerospace education.

FLYING Magazine (FM): You started flying early in life in Wichita. Can you share a story from those teen years when you first took flight?

Clay Lacy (CL): I remember seeing my first airplanes when I was five years old. There was Continental Airlines flying into Wichita from Denver [Colorado], same time every day, in a Lockheed 12—smaller than a DC-3—and I’d watch it every day. When I was eight years old, my mother took me for a ride in a Staggerwing Beechcraft at the airport—I was into model airplanes by then. When I could see my house from the air, I just thought this was great. From that time until I was 12, occasionally, I would get a few dollars and buy a ride. My grandmother had a farm outside of Wichita…and across the road was a golf course, and in 1944 a guy named Orville Sanders started bringing airplanes in there. I started going over there and helping him. [My grandmother agreed to rent land to Sanders] and three weeks later there were airplanes landing there. So from the time I was 12, I got to fly almost every day.

FM: In flying for United Airlines, you saw the breadth of some of the greatest transport category airplanes ever built. Does one stand out as your favorite?

CL: I had a great career at United—a good company—I had the opportunity to be copilot on a DC-3 for my first year with United. The Convair came in new in 1952, so a year later—they had a contract with the union so the company just assigned people to be copilots—I was assigned it and what a lucky thing that was. It was a modern airplane, with a lot of new systems and good things—and just a great opportunity.

FM: You flew the Learjet early on, and worked with the company and Bill Lear. Any stories to share from that time?

CL: I was really immersed in corporate aircraft sales at an early age, and then I became manager of sales for Learjet in [11] western states in 1964, and with Al Paulsen and his company. I introduced Bill Lear—and his company got the distributorship for those states. I flew the Learjet and I met so many people, like half of Hollywood, giving them demonstrations on Lears. It was a great period in my life. And I started my own charter company in 1969.

FM: For the first flight of the “Pregnant Guppy,” how did that come about?

CL: There was a fellow in the Guard named Jack Conroy. He was always into something new. He had set a record in F-86s from LA to New York and back in one day. He ended up in 1961 building the Pregnant Guppy airplane, which is a big airplane—it would carry the [Saturn rocket] engines that would take man [up to] the Moon, in the Apollo program. Jack would build a lot of airplanes in those days, and I was test-flying most of them. So we flew the Guppy in September 1962—at the time it was considered the world’s largest airplane. It lost some speed—about 18 percent at a given altitude. But Boeing was interested in the project because they were in the process of building the 747. They were interested in how much performance it was going to lose [with the wider cross section]. They were very happy when the numbers came in.

FM: Any good memories of flying the F-86? What was it like balancing the flying with United and keeping your commitment to the Air National Guard?

CL: In January 1954, I went into the air force pilot training for 20 months and was in Georgia, Greenville, Mississippi; Del Rio, Texas; and Las Vegas, Nellis Air Force Base. I came back to United Airlines and the [Air National Guard] in September 1955. I got to fly F-86s on my days off [from the airline]—it was a great life. [The F-86] was a great airplane—I loved it. It was new to the USAF, then the Guard got it during the Korean War. I became head of instrument training for the Guard, and it gave me the opportunity to fly with the general, wing commander, and group commander. We had problems in the Guard, they had had several accidents—like seven accidents in one year—the year before I came in. They were primarily people on cross-countries, with problems in instrument flying. They had a big inspection—and our Air Force advisor chose me to do the instrument flying. I really knew a lot about it because of my job with United. When the inspection was over, he gave me a ’10,’ the highest score he could give me.

FM: What drew you to the P-51, and to race it in the Unlimited Class at the first Reno Air Races?

CL: I always thought it would be fun to do the air racing—I had never done it. I was flying for United, early January 1964, into Reno [Nevada], and I got snowed in one day and I was walking around downtown, and I went by the Chamber of Commerce’s office. They had a sign in the window that the air race was coming in September, and I went in and got the information on it. The next day I was back in Al Paulsen’s office, and I said, ‘They’re gonna have races in Reno, and I’d like to get an airplane and fly it, a P-51.’ He looked shocked, and he said, ‘I just talked to a guy on the phone, and he wants to trade me a P-51 on a Cessna 310 he had for sale.’ The guy was in Lewiston, Idaho. In those days, the P-51s weren’t worth near as much as they are today. So Al wanted $17,500 for the Cessna 310, and…Al told him [he’d give him] $7,500 on the P-51. It was low time, one of the very last ones built— and it flew very nicely.

FM: You’ve made the move from pilot to philanthropist full-time—but you’ve been involved with charitable work all of your career. Tell us about the Clay Lacy Foundation, and the Aviation Youth Mentoring Program you’re involved in now—and what drives you to support kids?

CL: It’s something that I got into some time ago, just overall supporting kids. It’s been a good experience. I’ve had so much fun in aviation—I’m told I might be the highest-time pilot; I have over 55,000 flight hours. I love people in aviation—they’re good, honest people, I think. You tend to be honest in aviation, because if you’re not, you get in trouble if you’re a pilot. So they make good role models for young people. If [a young person] is really interested, they need to meet people who are in aviation who can sponsor them and help get them going.

Quick 6

Is there anyone living or dead who you would most like to fly with?

So many good friends…one being Bill Lear

If you could fly any aircraft that you haven’t flown yet, what would it be?

Several aircraft that I’ve filmed but not flown—like the SR-71

What’s your favorite airport that you’ve flown into?

When I was flying the line for United, Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Airport

What do you believe has been the biggest innovation breakthrough or event in aviation?

With the advances we’ve made in supersonic flight by the 1950s, I’m surprised we’re not flying faster now. But the increase in safety—it’s remarkable.

What is one important life lesson you’ve learned from being a pilot?

Learn all that you can—always be on the lookout to learn something new.

When not flying or promoting your charitable foundation, what would you rather be doing?

I have a place in Idaho, in the mountains. But, the main thing has always been airplanes and the people in aviation.

The post A Life in Pursuit with Clay Lacy appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The report refers to the aircraft involved by their race numbers. Race 6, which is the North American T-6G, N2897G (Six Cat), and Race 14, North American AT-6B, N57418 (Baron’s Revenge).

Most of the information comes from the pilot flying Race 66, who was third for landing.

Per the NTSB report, the pilot of Race 66 stated he was turning to enter the downwind when he heard the pilots of Baron’s Revenge and Six Cat both transmit “Downwind, abeam.”

• READ MORE: Reno Air Races Canceled Following Fatal Collision

As the pilot of Race 66 did not see the two other aircraft, he slowed down to “create some space and time to see them.” He heard the pilot of Baron’s Revenge transmit that he was on the base leg with his gear down. As the pilot of Race 66 approached the base leg, he saw Six Cat, and transmitted that Race 66 was downwind abeam his intended point of touchdown. He did not see Baron’s Revenge at first. 

He told investigators that when he “finally spotted” Baron’s Revenge, it was below him on his right on base leg, and Six Cat was in level flight to his left. He added this was not where he expected the aircraft to be. He described the base leg flown by the pilot of Baron’s Revenge as wider than it had been on two previous flights, while that flown by Six Cat was “tighter” than his position.

Baron’s Revenge crossed in front of Race 66 from right to left, disappearing under his engine cowling, while Six Cat disappeared under his left wing.

The pilot of Race 66 transmitted that he had his gear down and started a left turn for the base leg of Runway 8.

He then saw Baron’s Revenge in level flight with “nothing behind the passenger seat” and watched as the aircraft rolled to the right and plunged down.

According to another witness, Baron’s Revenge was on a southerly heading on the base leg for Runway 8, approximately 300 feet agl, while Six Cat was on the downwind on a west-southwest heading at the same altitude.

The witness told investigators, “At the time of the collision, Six Cat Race 6 was at about a 75-degree angle in relation to the flight path of [Baron’s Revenge] Race 14.”

• READ MORE: Early Analysis of Fatal Reno Accident Offers Lessons

According to witnesses in the grandstands at the time of the accident, many people did not realize what had happened at first, as their attention was diverted because the race was over. Several people told FLYING they heard a gasp from the crowd, then turned around to see the aircraft appearing to disintegrate in mid air and dust rising from the desert floor as the wreckage tumbled to the ground. This was followed by a stunned silence falling over the crowd.

The Wreckage

The debris path began approximately 7,881 feet northwest of the approach end of Runway 8 and extended south to the main wreckage of Baron’s Revenge for a distance of 1,366 feet in length.

The debris field included “segments of the left aileron, segments of the left flap, right horizontal stabilizer, right elevator, sections of aft fuselage skin, and a plastic pouch with the airplane documents.”

Small pieces of black painted skin and plexiglass from Six Cat were found in the debris field. The wreckage of Six Cat came to rest in an open field. It was noted, “The wing structure was separated from the fuselage and the outboard left wing was separated at the attach joint. The wing sections were located about 30 ft south of the main wreckage.”

There was significant aftward compression of the fuselage, and the vertical stabilizer, rudder, tailwheel, left horizontal stabilizer, left elevator, and portions of fuselage skin from Baron’s Revenge were found commingled with the wreckage of Six Cat.

The wreckage of Baron’s Revenge came to rest in an open field. The entire wing section was compressed aft, separated from the fuselage, and located about 10 feet from the main fuselage wreckage.

The NTSB stresses that this report is preliminary and subject to change as more information is uncovered. The final report is still likely several months away.

The post NTSB Releases Preliminary Report on Reno Midair appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The final National Air Races at Reno, Nevada are on hold following a two-airplane accident.

Reno Air Racing Association released a statement (see below) saying the pilots of the two aircraft involved are both deceased.

Identification of pilots has been held while the race organization contacts the next of kin. However, witness reports say that the two aircraft came together while recovering following the race.

The aircraft met such that the tail of one aircraft was severed followed by both aircraft falling to the ground at steep angles. There are no reports of anyone on the ground being involved; one aircraft appears to have crashed on open airport property, the other off airport also in open land between two sets of housing.

Whether the Unlimited and Sport Gold races will be run or concluded on the basis of previous heat races remains to be determined.

Statement regarding incident during final day of National Championship Air Races

Reno, Nev. – It is with great sorrow that the Reno Air Racing Association (RARA) announces that around 2:15 p.m. this afternoon, at the conclusion of the T-6 Gold race, upon landing, two planes collided and it has been confirmed that both pilots are deceased. The RARA Board of Directors and the T-6 class president are working to notify next of kin and ensure families have all of our support. There were no civilian injuries and we’re in the process of confirming additional details around the incident. Additional information will be released as soon as it is available. All racing operations are currently suspended.

Safety is the foremost concern of RARA and we work year round to host the safest event possible. As we always do, we are cooperating with the National Transportation Safety Board, the FAA and all local authorities to identify the cause of the accident and ensure that all of our pilots, spectators and volunteers have the necessary support during this time.

Editor’s Note: This is a developing story.

The post Reno Races on Hold Following Collision appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

In childhood, speed people were inching off first base, looking for the first twitch of the pitcher’s windup so they could take off and steal second. Altitude people were in right field wondering what kind of airplane just flew over and completely missing the lazy fly ball headed their way.

Once they grow up, speed people race sports cars; altitude people go on road trips. Speed people own center-console offshore fishing boats with outsize outboard engines; altitude people go sailing across far horizons at 5 knots while listening to Jimmy Buffett.

Some of my best friends are thoroughgoing speed freaks. There’s a great deal I admire in them, and a surprising amount of their thrill-seeking ways have rubbed off on me (motorcycling, dirt-biking, skydiving). But from earliest childhood, I have spiritually belonged squarely in the altitude camp. 

All of which perhaps explains why I have never been to the Reno Air Races until this past year. On the face of things, overpowered P-51 Mustangs going the speed of sexiness 50 feet off the scrub-desert floor should have had me driving to Nevada the same sun-soaked summer of ’98 that my beat-up Ford Ranger first pulled into Oshkosh, Wisconsin. But as I recall, my airy altitude-oriented teenaged self was then focused on sharing that transcendent change of perspective with the girl friend I wanted to make my girlfriend. (I failed miserably; she puked in my lap on a bumpy Wisconsin afternoon and declared me a great friend as I swabbed her vomit from my lap and the Cessna 150 cockpit.) I’ve never had a strong desire to go to the races since, presuming them to be a sort of sun-blasted aerial NASCAR catering to speed tweakers of the Daytona infield set in Florida.

And yet, here I am in the top row of the grandstands at Reno for the very first time, watching intently as Jeff LaVelle’s green-winged Glasair III carves around Pylon 9 and roars across the finish line at well over 400 mph. Its double-supercharged Lycoming IO-580 engine damn near bursting with some 80 inches of manifold pressure, putting out ungodly amounts of horsepower and driving his little composite kitplane to speeds it was clearly never meant to go.

And I want to stand up and yell at the top of my lungs until my pitch matches the horrific scream of that apocalyptic powerplant. I want a giant foam No. 1 mitt to wave obnoxiously in the air. I want to spill popcorn and beer on the mild-mannered man in front of me clicking away with his $5,000 telephoto-camera rig. I want to be Jeff LaVelle, flashing a few feet above the desert scrub at reality-bending speeds, a mere misplaced wrist-twitch from disaster.

I let out an exultant whoop and a fist pump as the little Glasair roars into a steep bank around Pylon 1, and Dawn looks at me like I’ve gone completely bonkers. I have come to Reno, it seems, to sacrifice my dignity and identity as a lofty disciple of altitude on the bloodstained altar of the “Temple of Speed.” 

How I Got Here

Characteristically, I ended up here more or less by accident. Having just recently completed our migration to the Seattle area, Dawn, Piper and I took off on a spur-of-the-moment road trip to look at a tiny house in Northern California we were interested in. Well, one thing led to another, and soon we were quaffing cab in wine country, then toasting the inimitable California sunset aboard a friend’s sailboat anchored in Sausalito, and then surveying the epic sweep of Yosemite Valley. Five days turned into two weeks as we rediscovered all the West Coast delights of our newlywed youth. We turned north to Lake Tahoe, and it seemed inevitable that we should subsequently make our way down to Reno, where our friend Joe Coraggio was set to race his nearly stock Lancair Legacy in his sophomore year with tentative hopes of flogging his steed a place or two higher in the Sport Silver Class.

The Big Day

It was Thursday, the least attended (and cheapest) day of race weekend, and the grandstands were still mostly empty as Dawn and I took our assigned seats to cheer on the early morning warriors of the Formula One and Biplane classes. These are simple single-place airplanes completely impractical for anything but aerobatics and racing (indeed, most of the Formula One airplanes arrived disassembled on trailers), and completely attainable to the old-school speed-mad garage tinkerer of modest means. You can pick up an older Cassutt Special for well under $20,000. Intriguingly, all the Formula One aircraft are powered by the same venerable Continental O-200 that powered the 150 in which I learned to fly. But despite the comparatively slow speeds (read: only twiceas fast as a 150) and the lack of adoring crowds, the racing looked really, really fun. And like something I could see myself doing, were I to ever completely ditch my fuddy-duddy altitude-pilot status. 

• READ MORE: Sam Weigel Archive

The Jet, T-6 and Unlimited classes are equally entertaining with considerably faster lap speeds (or in the T-6s’ case, at least higher decibel output), but I didn’t find these classes very relatable; I couldn’t see any realistic way into any of those cockpits short of winning the lottery or belatedly devoting my life to professional warbird wrangling (an unlikely development: too many varied interests—jack of all trades, master of none). And as thrilling as it should have been to see Dreadnought thundering around the course at 450 mph—or jets flashing by at another 70 knots faster—I kind of expect outrageously powerful all-metal military fighters designed to kill Nazis and subjected to 70 years of aggressive development to go stupid-fast. I especially expect jets to go fast. I’d personally like to take the Boeing 737 for a lap, and I suspect it could turn in a respectable time; though I’d definitely exceed G-limits, and the 118-foot wingspan would keep my line a bit high.

The Sport Class is what really intrigues me, and based on my cumulative Reno experience of spectating on a single Thursday, I’m ready to declare it the modern soul of pylon air racing. It’s open to all experimental aircraft of under 1,000 inches displacement capable of a 200 mph lap. That’s it. The simple entry rules have made it a hotbed of racing innovation. In its 23rd year, Sport has grown to become Reno’s largest class, with up to 40 hopeful entrants chasing 32 race slots in four subclasses. Mind you, it’s a fairly accessible class for mere mortals: near-stock RV-4s, -6s, and -8s (albeit those built light and with a bit more horsepower than Van originally envisioned) regularly qualify in Sport Medallion. And this same class fields several entrants (namely Jim LaVelle, Andy Findlay, Jim Rush and formerly Jon Sharp) who show up every year with genuinely shocking examples of what modern experimental aviation is capable of.

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I use the word “shocking” here in its most literal sense that doesn’t involve considerable voltage. I feel like modern Americans have become pretty blasé to the incredible. Formerly shocking developments in politics, business, entertainment and sports fade from the headlines in 24 hours. Crime requires a triple-digit body count to be shocking anymore. Billionaires chasing each other to space in private spacecraft theirown companies developed elicits indifferent eyerolls (and outright scorn for Richard Branson—he didn’t even make the Kármán line). “Been there, done that” is today’s byline of cynical cool. 

I challenge you. Go to Reno, and watch a little composite kitplane—that you know damn well was built in someone’s garage—as it darts 50 feet above the desert with the throttle wide open, the engine putting out twice the horsepower it was designed for, and emitting a commensurately appalling scream as it flashes by at 400 mph, and then tell me you’re not shocked to your core. Tell me you don’t want to yell and wave and spill your popcorn and beer. (“Are you not entertained!?”) Tell me you don’t imagine yourself in that cockpit, straining against the Gs pushing you into your seat and fighting tunnel vision as desert scrub flashes by your left wingtip at warp speed. Tell me you don’t want that stick in your hand as you dive for the checkered flag, utterly alive and utterly in the moment with eternity in your fingertips. Tell me I’ve gone completely round the bend.

Hmm. I may have gone completely round the bend.

The post Finally Visiting ‘The Temple of Speed’ appeared first on FLYING Magazine.