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.

Vicky Benzing hails from Northern California, growing up in San Jose. After graduating from high school, she pursued a career in physical chemistry, eventually obtaining a Ph.D in the discipline from the University of California-Berkeley. But a lucrative position in the Silicon Valley tech industry failed to hold onto her heart. Recognizing we have only so much time on the planet, she switched gears about 20 years ago, turned toward aviation, and practiced full time the aerosports she loves. Today she is based at Monterey Airport (KMRY).

She’s a skydiver, holds an airline transport pilot certificate, and flies her 450 hp 1940 Stearman in air shows around the country. In 2008, she placed in the top 10 in the Advanced category at the U.S. National Aerobatic Championships in an Extra 300S. But it’s her past 13 years at the National Championship Air Races in Reno that spark her forward the most. Benzing first raced at the Reno-Stead Airport (KRTS) in 2010, winning her first heat flying a Glasair SH-3R. She went on to become the “fastest woman at Reno” in 2015 in an L-139. And recently she’s topped the Sport Class Silver division with her custom Lancair Legacy, Lucky Girl.

• READ MORE: 6 Cities Competing to Host Next National Championship Air Races

FLYING caught up with Benzing as she was preparing for Reno 2023—hopeful to mark one more milestone at the storied event in the Unlimited Class at the controls of a P-51 Mustang.

FLYING Magazine (FM): How did you transition from aerobatics and get your start at Reno? What was the first airplane you brought to the races?

Vicky Benzing (VB): At the behest of Lee Behel, I went to PRS [Pylon Racing Seminar] in my Extra and, of course, the Extra is too slow to race. The Sport Class was not yet oversubscribed…we hadn’t opened the class up to [Van’s] RVs yet…so he asked me if I would race if he could find an airplane for me. Vicki Cruse [an aerobatic champion who died flying her Edge 540 at an airshow in England in 2009] was a close friend. Lee purchased her Glasair from her estate, and I raced it in her honor. She had previously raced at Reno—it was Race 13— the Cruse Missile. That airplane…had gremlins, and we always attributed that to Vicki’s sense of humor. I won that first race against Scott Nelson—I had to pass him to win the race. I got the fire truck ride, and the second race, I was on the pole, and when you’re a rookie, trying to find the pylons is tough. In the chute, when I put the throttle forward, I had a prop overspeed and very nearly lost the prop. I managed to get the airplane on the runway. We rebuilt the engine on that airplane, and I raced it the following year, the race that the Galloping Ghost went in, so we didn’t get to finish the race. So it wasn’t till the third year that I actually got to race all the heat races.

FM: From there, you went on to progress into the Jet Class, as well as getting the right airplane to advance in the Sport Class. Tell us about those experiences.

VB: In 2013, I raced the jet, Kermit, the L-39, and the Cruse Missile. We tried to make the Cruse Missile go faster with modifications—and I had a number of Lancair “kills.” But it wasn’t as fast as all the Lancairs. I put a rearview mirror in my cockpit, and I put a label on it that said, “Lancairs belong here.” But I wanted to have an airplane that I could modify and work on my own, and so in 2014, I went out and bought Lucky Girl [a Lancair Legacy]. I think the Cruse Missile was jealous, because Lee took me to go look at Lucky Girl in Fresno, California, and on the way, the Cruse Missile threw a fit and had a prop overspeed, and we ended up landing at the former Castle Air Force Base—Merced Airport [KMCE] now. Lucky Girl’s a fast stock Lancair, and through the years I’ve just modified her bit by bit, with bigger pistons, and last year, nitrous [oxide, a performance booster], and we’ll probably run nitrous this year.

FM: In 2015, you became the fastest woman at Reno. How did you come by that milestone?

VB: I raced the jet again in 2014, and then Dianna Stanger called me up to race her jet, Darkstar, an L-139, in 2015, and that’s when I became the fastest woman ever at Reno, ’cause I was clocked on the course at 469.831 mph, which was the same speed as one of the other guys did. And he clocked it first before me, so I ended up behind him in the order. Last year I raced Robin, the yellow jet [L-39]. Jets [are] a different deal—it’s really high G loading, especially for the really fast ones. You kind of say, “400 mph, 4 Gs; 500 mph, 5 Gs,” but that’s continuous, so if you hit wake, or fly unevenly, you’re hitting even higher Gs.

FM: You moved up to the top of the Sport Class Silver rankings regularly over the past few years in Lucky Girl. But you’ve had other dramatic moments in the race that stand out.

VB: From 2014 to present, I’ve raced Lucky Girl. My engine quit in the cooldown [lap]. I came out on downwind in the cooldown and went to land, and the engine quit. I was like, “What? You’re kidding me.” And those airplanes come down so quickly. I was basically over [Runway] 8, and I made the left turn to land on 32, and I barely got on the runway, barely got out of the turn before I made the runway. They are not gliders.

FM: For this year, you plan to campaign a special airplane. How did you come to buy a classic warbird?

VB: So I bought Clay Lacy’s P-51 [Miss Van Nuys] in 2019, and Steve Hinton Jr. has been restoring it, and it became a much bigger project than it started out as. The idea of purchasing the aircraft was to put it on the racecourse at Reno because it’s an historic aircraft [see “In Depth,” Issue 938] but also to fly it at airshows, because I think airplanes like that deserve to be seen. I think, as a woman, there are not that many opportunities to fly warbirds. I would love to be the person who is at the [Commemorative Air Force] museum wrenching on airplanes, but I just don’t have time to do that with doing the shows. I had to make an opportunity for myself to fly a warbird. I went to Stallion 51 to get training—and I swore up and down to my husband I was not going to buy a P-51. He bought me a little model for my desk. But Clay is my neighbor at Pine Mountain Lake, and I heard that his Mustang was for sale. It took a little talking to my husband and asking Clay if he would sell it to me.

FM: But the care and feeding of a warbird takes time and investment. Share with us the story of bringing an historic P-51 to the Unlimited Class.

VB: [Miss Van Nuys] had never been restored since it was built in 1944—never been overhauled. The last time an engine had been put in it was 1976 [after Lacy’s last time racing it at Reno in 1972]. I would be surprised if there were 100 hours on that engine. We were just going to bring it back up to snuff, but then one thing led to another. And that led to paint, and can you paint the cockpit, can you change the instrument panel? And then going through the airplane, we found a crack in the tail, so it had to come off. Steve is in the process of painting it—we got delayed by paint because we had a custom color mix, [a purple that is an exact match to the original shade]. We ordered it in September [2022], and we got it in April. We put in a water bar system for racing; the wing was profiled to make it smooth for racing. We put all the antennas inside the airplane. One of the things that I really like about racing is the modifications that you do to your airplane are there forever. If you’re using it for commuting or flying here to there, you’re going a lot faster because of the investment you’ve made in the airplane. My Lancair Legacy Lucky Girl cruises all day long at 2,500 rpm and full throttle, 5,500 feet, at 250 knots.

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

The post Expanding the Campaign at Reno appeared first on FLYING Magazine.