The great "Balls to the Wall" Challange, GT450 vs Whirlwind 912s

[Stephan van Tonder]

Start with a test flight with a logger on board as they did for the race of champions.

[AndyG]

Competed in the PTAR last weekend at New Tempe. Was an awesome experience.
To be fair the planes would have to be handicapped as they do there.
Would be nice to see something like this happen at our level

[AndyG]

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[AndyG]

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[Trikenut]

Andy,
In the second pic, which one is you?

[RV4ker (RIP)]

The good looking 1....

[RV4ker (RIP)]

Head-ache though: how and where do you start with the handicaps ? Manufacturer's claimed cruise speeds ?

Piss. 1 of a number of ways.

You choose your handicap speed. If you beat it you are disqualified... (Simple but effective - Not always fair though)
VNE or Max cruise in manual - Again not always fair as some standards for setting these differe from others and different wings, fairings etc
Test flights. Simple, easy and most fair, but take time to do...

I will handle handicaps and suggest we have a smallie to set things in motion. Maybe 15-20 "racers" max and we take it from there... Each aerie goes for a test flight before brekkie (7.00 to 8.00 for eg), while the boys are having brekkie (8-9) we process the handicaps and after brekkie (9.00 start) they set sail with a finish at 10.30ish? Will require flight after 9am though which I know is often an issue, unless we can get test flights done before hand, in which case we set sail at 7 an finish at 8.30.... The logger test flights are dead simple and simply require an observer to ensure the pilot is flying flat speed and bar in? I don't know how practical that is, but we need a basis to start from. Maybe we should allow nominating speeds at first race to get data and then take it from there?

GPS are not allowed in PTAR? What about here. Pulling bar and navigating at max speed will be challenge? What say about GPS? Also we usually reauire 2 crew so that there is always 1 guy looking for other aeries, but closing speeds are far less? What about single pilot racers or is it a 2 crew event?

[Stephan van Tonder]

2 crew event no gps if you want to run on it the same basis as PTAR or ROC. I would love to partcipate in these things but will have to wait till my airplane is ready.

[Miskiet]

Hi Guys,

You are missing the plot totally here with handicapping, PTAR etc.

This is should be a straightforward, no punches barred flight (GT450 against the Whirlwind912S) The aim is to see which planes the fastest, not who is the better navigator. Of course GPS is allowed - it will record the speeds for us and make sure both planes fly the same triangular track within a few minutes of eah other to cancel out any influences of wind etc.

At the end the result will be GT450 mph avg speed and Whirlwind mph avg speed. Picking the winner is easy....

[Dish]

I concure and strongly agree with the miskiet... watse handicapping BS is this??? what no GPS??? C*(&*^ - its a flat race between the GT and alex's plane. why complicate it and start throwing handicaps and the like in???

thats just stoopid !!

[Coyote]

I agree it should be a straight punch-out !!! Maybe work in some time to climbs or something to test the climbing performance also. Im definitely there just finalise a date. Maybe is should challenge the Cheetahs to a race ????

[Dish]

UH oh Coyote - now youve done it, dont get stephan started or there will be a rather large can of whooop ass opened... hes a cheetah man through and through. Having said that I must at this point make it very clear that I shall not be entering the Bantam in this race as the bantam could quite possibly be the slowest duck ever to fly the magalies region. I make no bones about the fact that DIF duck is extremely slow...

BUT she makes a great photographic platform....

when ooohhhh when ohhhhh when ????

[Coyote]

Horsesh%$£t DIF is actually quite quick - you just cannot compare to some of the rocketships out there. Dont get me wrong, I like the Cheetah and may even be thingking of buying one of these that are on special. They are just very slow........

[Stephan van Tonder]

Hang on hang on. I thought we were discussing 2 types of racing here. There is the balls to the wall - that is a definite no holds barred flat out race from point A to point B and you use gps - whatever crew or weight is decided on.

THEN they talked about a PTAR type race like the nav comps and that is what I meant must have handicap and so on. Nah I won't enter any balls to the wall races with a cheetah. They do a lot of stuff well but big speed ain't it. Flat out - straight and level with no wind won't see more than 100mph.
But let's load 2 fat pilots and go somewhere 4 hours away and we can talk.

[Coyote]

I HOOKED ONE NOT AS BIG AS I WOULD HAVE HOPED BUT STILL...........