Reno Air Races -- Day 3

It was cold today in the Reno area for the National Championship Air Races. Only in the upper 50’s, it was 30 degrees cooler than Wednesday! On top of that, the wind was about 20 with gusts near 30 mph. That wind not only made it chilly for the crowd, but also difficult for the pilots. Very early in the day there was one biplane race. As the planes were returning to land after the race, it was obvious from the angle of their approach that there was a strong crosswind. The racers are experienced pilots. These pilots were working hard to land and two of them went around for a second attempt. They cancelled the rest of the biplane races for the day. Check out photos of the day here.

The speaker at the checkered flag club lunch was R.A. (Bob) Hoover. He made some introductory remarks for 2 minutes and then he asked for questions. That was nice. We heard him talk about his WWII fighter pilot days and how he was shot down. He talked about the X-1 project - how he got bumped to #2, his respect for Chuck Yeager, and his experience flying the chase plane the day they broke the sound barrier. Bob smiled when he said he knew Chuck did it when the X-1 passed him like he was standing still. He shared other memories from his test pilot and air show days for almost an hour. Afterwards he stayed for a bit and I was able to get his autograph. Read more about Bob here and here.

Despite the wind, Ken Pietsch landed his little plane on a RV going 60 mph over less than a mile of runway. Pretty good feat even on a calm day. There are a few shots of his approach and landing in today’s Flickr pool. Scroll to see the sequence.

The full US Air Force Thunderbird team gave a nice show. There are a couple photos starting here. One of their nicest maneuvers is when 4 planes fly slow in the landing configuration and then they split the formation so a 5th plane can fly between them at a high speed. See photos here and here to see the fifth plane fly through the formation.

They are having Heritage flights throughout the races that are formations of old and new warbirds. Today they had a Navy formation with planes from the Grumman F4F Wildcat to the F18. See photos here and here.

The unlimited bronze race was exciting with Precious Metal passing multiple planes, including the Big Boss Man, to win. Here is a photo just after passing. The green wings of the P-51 Precious Metal are easy to see. The announcers mentioned Ron told them the team had fixed something that he thought would give a lot more power. He was right.

Voodoo was supposed to be in the final unlimited gold race of the day. However, Voodoo just barely got off the runway when Button pulled the power and landed. I guess something didn’t look right. Hopefully they’ll be back in the silver race tomorrow. Mike Brown won the gold race easily in September Fury, a Sea Fury. He was going about 450 mph. The big battle for fifth and sixth place was between Riff Raff and the Spirit of Texas. They were neck and neck at the finish as Riff Raff went low to gain speed. It wasn’t quite enough, but he was only a few feet behind.

This sign in Rare Bear’s pit area says it all.