There's a Tsunami Coming

Closed course air racing in the 1920s and 1930s was dominated by airplanes built specifically as racers. Charles Willis (Speed) Holman won the 1930 Thompson Trophy flying the Laird Solution, so called because it was the "solution" to the Travel Air Mystery Ship that won the 1929 race. Travel Air supposedly built the Mystery Ship in complete secrecy.

In 1932, Jimmy Doolittle won the Thompson Trophy flying the notorious Bee Gee R-1. Doolittle later set a speed record for a land plane, 296 mph. Interestingly the speed record for all airplanes was held by the Supermarine S.6B that had floats instead of wheels and went 407 mph.

World War II interrupted air racing but produced very fast fighter aircraft for the next generation of racers. North American Aviation's gorgeous P-51 was a popular choice, and many were heavily modified for racing. Most Mustangs were powered by a Rolls Royce Merlin liquid cooled V-12 engine that gave it a sleek looking fuselage with very low drag.

Lyle Shelton's approach was raw power. He modified a Gruman F8F-2 Bearcat replacing the R-2800 motor with a Wright R-3350 from the much larger Douglas Skyraider. In 1989 Rare Bear set the speed record for piston engine aircraft at 528 mph.

By that time, the huge number of surplus fighters with piston engines had dwindled to a few thousand and were more often found in museums or private collections rather than on racecourses. That situation inspired a couple attempts to revive the idea of large purpose-built racing airplanes.

John R. Sandberg owned JRS Enterprises in Minneapolis, Minnesota that specialized in rebuilding Allison and Rolls Royce aircraft motors. He raced in a Bell P-63 during the 1970s. P-63s were powered by an Allison V-12 that was somewhat like the Merlin. P-63s, and the earlier P-39, had the motor mounted behind the cockpit. In the early 1980s Sandberg conceived and built a lightweight racer powered by a Rolls Royce Merlin engine, the same power plant used in the P-51. Sandberg called it Tsunami. It weighed about 7200 pounds and the Merlin was modified to produce 3500 horsepower. P-51s were 2000 pounds heavier and the stock Merlin produced about half that power.

Financed by Bob Pond, Burt Rutan built a racer powered by two souped up automobile engines producing 600 horsepower each. The "Pond Racer" weight only 4100 pounds. It first flew in 1991, but the best speed it could achieve was 400 mph. The "Racer" crashed in 1993 following an engine failure killing the race pilot.

Sandberg did better but had the same tragic end. Tsunami exceeded 500 mph in level flight at least once and won an unlimited class race. Sandberg and Tsunami were on a ferry flight in 1991 when a flap malfunction resulted in the airplane crashing during an attempted landing at Pierre, South Dakota. Sandberg died and Tsunami was put in storage.

Sam Torvik and Bill Moja were the engine gurus at JRS. Torvik was a Merlin specialist and Moja liked Allison engines. Both did radials. After the crash, JRS transformed itself into a fabrication shop for aerospace components. However, Moja and Torvik kept on building airplane engines into the 21st century. As they said, "almost as if nobody knew how to stop it." The business was limited to collectors, commercial operators, and museums. The Tsunami Merlin was their last racing engine.

Flight Expo Inc. is restoring Tsunami at their shop in Princeton where visitors are always welcome. http://www.flightexpo.org