P51 Voodoo going for a speed record..

For anyone following Reno air racing know the unlimited P51 Mustang Voodoo.Steve Hinton Jr is chasing the record for fastest piston engine d prop driven plane previously set by Lyle Shelton in the modified Grumman Bearcat 'Rare Bear' at 524mph.
With a new wing design that gives a better efficiency at the height required for the record held previously by Rare Bear.
From Voodoo air racing at Fb..

I just want to give an update on Steven Hinton, Jr’s (Steve-O’s) upcoming attempt at breaking the piston-powered, three-kilometer world-speed record in Voodoo as I know it. We are all fans of Steve-O Hinton and Voodoo. If anybody (and I am sure there are quite a number) has some more-informed information, please correct me. I don’t want to sound like a know-it-all because I am not but I have an engineering background. The record attempt will occur later this month in Idaho. This is all based on information I heard today from Steve Hinton, Steve-O’s dad. The record is currently held by Lyle Shelton in the highly modified Grumman F8F Bearcat “Rare Bear” at 528.33 mph. Based on my knowledge, even though the P-51 had one of the most advanced and capable wing designs of WWII, it really is probably not capable of speeds required to break the current world speed record at the altitude range required for a record attempt even given the big horsepower of the current Merlin-engine race designs. But based on analyses provided by Voodoo’s new sponsor, Aviation Partners, Inc., the wing configuration of Voodoo has been substantially changed. Look up Aviation Partner’s background on Google and you will see why they are capably involved in this effort. Based on my info and personal engineering experience with LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) analyses in other engineering fields, Voodoo’s wing was mapped and analyzed using this method. The fascinating result (at least to me) was that Voodoo’s wing was very recently thickened near the wing roots and tapered off toward the wingtips. This is a radical departure from the original design. Steve Hinton, within the last week, flew with his son, Steve-O with Steve in the PoF F-86 Sabre and Steve-O in Voodoo. In his maneuvering around Voodoo in the F-86, Steve reported that Voodoo appeared to fly beautifully with zero visible trim-tab deflection on any control surface which is a very good indicator of aerodynamic and control-surface harmony plus low drag. I know at least some of the airspeeds that were attained but I am not going to reveal them in the interest of having some fun here, but the airspeeds were more than substantial, eek! Steve reported “vapor clouds” above Voodoo’s wings at times during the test run which may have never been seen before on a Mustang. Go Steve-O and go Voodoo on the speed-record attempt! Below is a very recent photo of Voodoo from Bernie Vasquez's recent post.

a reply to: Blackfinger

My favorite airplane ever! The P 51! Love it....the Corsair was pretty damn cool too...but the P 51 defined the height of piston driven flight, mind you Im nust an enthusiast not a pro like many of you

This is Voodoo last year doing a ~500mph run.

a reply to: Pyle

Wow! What a beast! Damn to think that tech was within reach in the 1940s

a reply to: BlueJacket

Cool plane, no doubt. My fave will always be the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt. Of course, I have an extreme bias as my Dad worked on them during the second world war, and some of the stories he tells of that beast are amazing.

a reply to: seagull

My folks were all marines and Navy..but man everyone should respect the ww1 and 2 flyers...boats had been floating thousands of years...planes?...not so much

I was a grunt...

P47 was a beast

Im all about beauty and grace....Supermarine Spitfire for me...

a reply to: Blackfinger
I'll say he will beat 550mph pretty quickly. Personally I always loved the Mustang, particularly the H and L models. Apparently those who have had the opportunity to fly a wide variety of WWII models say the Spit had the most beautiful handling, probably as a result of the unique wing.

a reply to: Blackfinger

hands down the Mustang was the best aircraft in world war II as far as i'm concerned, followed by the P 38 Lighting, F4U Corsair, P 40 Tomahawk. there were a few others but those stand out the most to me.

a reply to: hounddoghowlie
Actually for the majority of the war the F4U was an expensive to manufacture, delayed in development and deployment and at times unreliable POS. It only came into its own later in its life after a lot of work in particular by the RN FAA and Marines before finally excelling, although ironically it was far better as a land based fighter than its original mission of carrier born aircraft.

originally posted by: thebozeian
a reply to: Blackfinger
I'll say he will beat 550mph pretty quickly. Personally I always loved the Mustang, particularly the H and L models. Apparently those who have had the opportunity to fly a wide variety of WWII models say the Spit had the most beautiful handling, probably as a result of the unique wing.

I absolutely love the P51 as well. I read an account from a pilot who flew both the spitfire and P51. As much as he loved the spitfire he said the Mustang had the range to escort the bombers into Germany cover them and get home. Where as in the Spit he probably wouldn't have made it back to England due to a lack of range.

a reply to: thebozeian

being that i was in the Marine Corps is one of the reasons i like the aircraft. as far as production cost and and delayed deployment, i don't think that 2 years from request to to prototype delivery is and consider to long even back then, and to combat in 2 years from prototype delivery to combat 1938 to 1942, 4 years. two of which we were not even in the war.
plus, seeing how that the aircraft was ahead of it's time in many areas and problems arose from that, not bad.

and another note,

From the first prototype delivery to the U.S. Navy in 1940, to final delivery in 1953 to the French, 12,571 F4U Corsairs were manufactured,[2] in 16 separate models, in the longest production run of any piston-engined fighter in U.S. history (1942–53).[3][4][5]
Vought F4U Corsair

12,571 F4U Corsairs that's quite a impressive number.

and one more note, from the same source

Some Japanese pilots regarded it as the most formidable American fighter of World War II,[8] and the U.S. Navy counted an 11:1 kill ratio with the F4U Corsair.[9]

I've helped restore two Corsairs and a Mustang. I have to go with the Corsair. The only thing I liked about the Mustang is the lack of the cooling flaps around the engine. The Mustangs biggest weakness is it's radiator. Several Mustangs were lost to nothing more than a hole in the radiator. Several Corsairs made it back with entire cylinders shot away.

a reply to: JIMC5499

The joys of those great big honkin' Pratt and Whitneys radial engines.

You literally had to shoot them to pieces before they'd quit. Same couldn't always be said for the Rolls-Royce Merlin.

a reply to: seagull

Yep. But those Merlins are fun to work on.

originally posted by: thebozeian
a reply to: hounddoghowlie
Actually for the majority of the war the F4U was an expensive to manufacture, delayed in development and deployment and at times unreliable POS. It only came into its own later in its life after a lot of work in particular by the RN FAA and Marines before finally excelling, although ironically it was far better as a land based fighter than its original mission of carrier born aircraft.

Not sure where that came from. I've been a fan of WWII aircraft for a number of years (born during the war) and haven't read anything about the Corsair being unreliable. Few airplanes went from drawing board to front line without sometimes significant issues along the way and the Corsair was no exception.

It's biggest knock when first introduced was its propensity to eliminate ensigns. It was a terror to land on a carrier because that long nose rendered the carrier invisible on approach. Once the Brits got hold of it and showed the U.S. Navy how to land it on a carrier (a curving approach where the nose didn't block sight of the carrier until the last second) it served admirably flying from carriers. Because of the vision problem the Corsair was, early on, assigned to ground-based units. Later in the war it made the transition to carriers.

a reply to: Cohen the Barbarian

You are correct sir. My Dad loved the Corsair. He was with the Marines in the Korean War.

a reply to: Cohen the Barbarian

Not unreliable. It took a bit to figure out how to operate it safely aboard aircraft carriers due almost exclusively to its long ass nose, but once that little problem was solved it was, literally--along with the Hellcat, a war winner in the Pacific.

a reply to: JIMC5499

That's what a lot of people have told me, people who have reason to know.

originally posted by: BlueJacket
a reply to: Pyle

Wow! What a beast! Damn to think that tech was within reach in the 1940s

Actually, that tech really wasn't available in the '40s. The wings on Voodoo started out as 1960s Learjet wings. The 1940s engine was limited to 12 psi of boost and 3,000 RPM. That boost equates to about 58 inches of manifold pressure. The highly modified engine in Voodoo can run 75 psi of boost, or up to 150 inches manifold pressure, and they run up to 3500 RPM. The resulting horsepower increase requires the use of a more modern propellor. Most Reno racers use the monster prop from the A-1 Sktraider. They use more modern connecting rods and wrist pins. The original P-51 used a NACA 65 2-015 airfoil, although some later models used a Series 66 airfoil. Laminar flow for these designs extended to about 40% of chord. Voodoo's design, modified from a Lear wing goes to more than 60% of chord. No one in the 40s could get that kind of flow. Let's give some credit to Voodoo's modern engineers and aerodynamicists.